Harry Potter Versus
by JBean210
Summary: On his 20th birthday, Harry is kidnapped and set up against a series of opponents from places and situations unknown to him, to test his skill as a Auror and wizard. He has no idea who he'll be up against until he meets them. Ch. 1 - The Hulk! Ch. 2 - Harry Callahan! Ch. 3 - Remo Williams! Ch. 4 - Duncan MacLeod! Ch. 5 - Sheldon Cooper! Ch. 6 - The Doctor! Ch. 7 - ?
1. The Hulk

**Harry Potter Versus**

**Chapter One**

**The Hulk**

_Published April 28, 2012_

Harry Potter awakened slowly, feeling groggy and hung over. He rubbed his eyes, trying to get the sleep out of them, and felt his glasses still on his face; _how_ had he managed to drink so much that he'd fallen asleep in the middle of his birthday party? At least he was lying down on something soft.

At last able to get his eyes open, Harry looked around, expecting to find himself in a room at the Leaky Cauldron, or at least on the floor with a Cushioning Charm beneath him. But he wasn't in a building at all.

Harry sat up and looked around blearily, sleepiness still tugging at his eyelids. He was outside somewhere; there was a grove of trees around him, with bushes and other ground cover growing haphazardly, and an open field with rocky terrain ahead of him. Next to him, on his right side was his trusted holly wand, the wand he'd had since his eleventh birthday, nine years ago yesterday, when he'd attended a party in his honor at the Leaky Cauldron given by his fellow Aurors and his best mate, Ron Weasley.

It had been a festive evening, Harry remembered. He, Ron, and several Aurors were also celebrating his second year in the Auror Department, and the Merlin's Best mead and firewhiskey had flowed freely. Gawain Robards, who'd been reinstated as Head Auror by Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt after his election to the leadership of Wizarding Britain's government, had toasted him for his hard work in clearing up many of the loose ends left after Voldemort's death and the disbandment of his Death Eaters. Everyone there had had a good time. So what was he doing _here_?

_It must be a bit of taking the mickey out of me_, Harry thought. Part of Auror Training was a survival exercise where an Auror trainee was placed in a wilderness area, in any of a half-dozen countries across Scandinavia and Europe, and was expected to make his way back to headquarters, while other Auror trainees attempted to apprehend him before he could make it back.

Harry had never gone through that training, though he had taken most of the other coursework that Aurors normally went through. Ron, who had gone to work with George at the joke shop after the Battle of Hogwarts, was currently in Auror Training as well, though he'd been given the same opportunity Harry had—Kingsley had wanted them to become Aurors straightaway, right after the battle; he'd considered the year they spent finding Voldemort's Horcruxes sufficient "training" and convincing evidence that they were ready for the Auror position, even without the requisite N.E.W.T.S., but Ron had felt he needed to go through the training before becoming an Auror himself. Kingsley would have made Hermione an Auror as well if she hadn't decided to return to Hogwarts to complete her last year of education.

Still a little sleepy, Harry leaned back on his hands for a moment, resting, until he realized that his left hand was on top of something other than grass. He picked up the object and found that it was a sealed envelope, addressed to H.J. Potter. It was a Muggle envelope, made of paper with the flap glued shut. Harry ran two fingers along one side, using a small wandless spell Hermione had taught him, and the side of the envelope split open. Inside was a letter, which Harry unfolded and began reading.

_To Harry Potter,_

_Greetings from an Admirer!_

_I have been observing your career at the Ministry for the past two years and congratulate you on the progress you've made; both you and Ron Weasley have made tremendous strides there despite the fact that both of you are riding on the coattails of Minister Shacklebolt's futile attempt to reform Wizarding Britain's government, along with the help of Hermione Granger. Without her influence on Shacklebolt, you and Weasley would have been sacked long ago._

_Was this person serious_? Harry wondered, frowning at the letter. Hermione had only been working at the Ministry since last year, after she'd earned five N.E.W.T.S. at Hogwarts, all with Outstanding scores. She was currently working in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, trying to get more rights for house-elves; a continuation of her efforts with S.P.E.W. the organization she had formed at Hogwarts in her fourth year. He and Ron, in the Auror Department, had nothing directly to do with her. How was that in any way "riding on her coattails?" Shaking his head in disbelief, Harry continued to read.

_I'm sure this is not something you can admit right now, but no matter — I do not intend to debate politics with you. We are here for a different reason, which I am sure you are quite keen to learn about._

_I propose a test of your wizard abilities against an opponent who is physically stronger than you, but has no innate magical abilities of his own. That should not be a disability for him, however — he can be quite resistant to many magical spells. Your objective is to stop him before he leaves the combat arena, a circle with a radius of about one hundred miles from your current location._

_As to where you are… for now, let this remain my secret. It is isolated from human contact, both wizards and Muggles, but there are human towns within a hundred miles of where you are right now, and if your opponent in this little contest were to enter one of those towns, serious damage and perhaps injury or even death could occur to the humans living there._

This was madness. Harry could not imagine anyone capable of such destruction without magical abilities. Even with them, a wizard could not cause much destruction before an Auror team was dispatched to stop him and to prevent more property damage or harm to people.

And _who_ would have done something like this to him? Harry had briefly wondered if George and Ron were playing a prank on him, but they would not have written what this letter accused him of, even in jest. The same went for anyone in the Auror Office — some of the long-time Aurors there had initially opposed him joining their ranks, especially without the expected education or training, but they had come to see what being an Auror meant to him, and had accepted him as one of their own.

_Most_ of them had, at least. Harry had been learning to think like an Auror for the past two years; he had to at least consider the possibility that this could be a malicious trick by someone in the Auror Office, harboring resentment toward him, was perpetrating on him. There _were_ a couple of candidates he could think of. Both Everard Proudfoot and Thomas Savage had been cool toward Harry when he began his Auror duties, refusing to partner with a "rookie." Now, two years later, they had both attended Harry's party the previous evening, but had remained aloof, sitting away from him and next to each other; Harry had noticed them laughing quietly together when Harry was being toasted by other Aurors. Either one of them might have set up this confrontation with…who or whatever Harry was supposed to confront. He went back to reading the letter.

_Now, as to the identity of your opponent… you should find him quite a challenge. He was originally an American physicist and radiation expert who was exposed to gamma radiation. That should have killed him, but instead it somehow forced a mutation to his DNA that cascaded throughout his entire physical structure, allowing him to transform into a large, green-skinned hulk of a human during periods of increased stress to his system. In fact, he was code-named "The Hulk" by the American military._

_If you are able to prevent him from reaching an inhabited area without him killing you, you will be returned to London where you may continue your Auror activities. If not — well, my point about your lack of real ability will have been made._

_Look sharp, now! The Hulk has been set loose even as you are reading this. Time to prove that you are an Auror in fact, not just in name._

The letter ended without signature, not that Harry had expected one. He refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope — it could come in handy later for identifying the author if — _when_! — he returned to the Ministry.

Harry stood and unconsciously dusted himself off, noticing he was still wearing the jeans and black T-shirt he'd had on last night at the Leaky Cauldron. The t-shirt was a present from Hermione two Christmas past — on it were white letters that said, "I defeated Lord Voldemort and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!" Seeing the name on still tended to make many wizards uncomfortable, though Muggles who'd seen it mostly thought Voldemort was a character in a video game or comic book.

Harry walked to the edge of the grove of trees and surveyed the field in front of him. Beyond it he could see rocky hills, while off to the right there was a sparsely-populated forest. On the left, the field turned into a dry plain. Beyond that Harry sensed even dryer terrain. It did not feel like he was anywhere in England, or even Scotland or Ireland.

Pointing his wand straight into the air, Harry silently cast _Comperius Locus_, the Location Charm. The strength of the resulting sensation would tell him about how far he was from a known location — in this case Ministry of Magic Headquarters in London. A strong sensation would be relatively close while a weaker one would mean he was some distance away.

There was no sensation at all. Harry pondered that for a moment — it meant he was _very_ far away from London, on the order of thousands of miles distant. He could be in Eastern Asia, or North or South America. It was worth noting, he recalled, that Auror trainees (the ones who actually _took_ the full Auror Training Courses, unlike him) were brought to various locations around the world so they could cast the Location Charm using landmarks from that region.

If the letter-writer was even half-truthful, Harry was going to have to find this Hulk creature and incapacitate it somehow, assuming he couldn't force it back into its human form. He began casting a series of _Homenum Revelio_ spells, hoping to locate the creature, but nothing was showing — ah! Off to the right there was the flash of a revealing aura. Whatever this Hulk was, he was also near enough to human for the revealment charm to work. The size of the aura told Harry the Hulk was several hundred yards away. Harry quickly cast a charm for detecting Anti-Disapparition jinxes in the area; detecting none, he turned on the spot, Apparating toward the location of the creature.

Not too closely, though, because he didn't want to alert the creature with the sound of his appearance. He appeared at the edge of the forest he'd seen from the grove of trees, now a few hundred yards and more behind him. Another quick _Homenum_ spell showed the Hulk's aura to be about forty yards away and in a sitting or resting position. The aura had also been unusually large, making Harry wonder just how big this Hulk was supposed to be. A mountain troll could grow to 12 feet in height — this human wasn't _that_ big, but he didn't seem to be much smaller, either.

Reaching up to tap the top of his head with his wand, to cast the Disillusionment Charm, Harry suddenly remembered — his Invisibility Cloak was in his mokeskin pouch! The pouch, a gift from Hagrid the summer before he, Hermione and Ron began their hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes, had turned out to be very useful during that time. Harry quietly drew the pouch from beneath his robes, reached in, and took out the Cloak, then pulled it silently over him, disappearing into thin air.

Before he began his approach, Harry cast one final charm: the Quieting Charm, a useful spell the Ministry kept under wraps and out of the books of standard spells. It prevented any sound a person made from being heard outside a limited range. Very useful for approaching targets while Disillusioned or Cloaked — it kept them from hearing you even if they couldn't see you. Now invisible and silent, Harry moved toward the human's position.

When the Hulk finally came into view, in a small clearing not far from the edge of the forest, Harry stopped, momentarily impressed by his appearance. The Hulk looked _immensely_ powerful for a human, like something chiseled from living rock or metal. It wasn't as big as a mountain troll, but was easily seven or eight feet tall, he estimated. The creature was sitting against an outcropping of rock, seemingly half-asleep. Its legs were pulled up in front of it, with huge forearms resting on its knees. The head was bent forward, the eyes lidded, and its breathing was clearly audible (the Quieting Charm didn't impede sound coming inward, only outward).

Then the Auror in him took over, and Harry began calculating how he might render such a being harmless. A Stunner was highly unlikely to work; it took several cast simultaneously to work on Hagrid, and this creature looked like it could easily manhandle the half-giant.

How resistant was this — Hulk — to magic, _really_, Harry wondered. The letter was suspect — he couldn't just take the word of someone who would put him in this kind of situation. Chains might hold him, Harry estimated, but anything he conjured would not last long before fading away. He'd have to Transfigure some from nearby resources, enough to bind its arms and legs tightly. Something like the kind of chains he'd seen Charlie Weasley and other dragon wranglers use on the dragons for the Triwizard Tournament, Harry decided. Then, he hoped, he could use a powerful Sleep Charm on the creature, like the one Fleur had used on her dragon during the first Triwizard Tournament task.

At that moment the Hulk raised its head and looked around. Its gaze turned in Harry's direction; the creature frowned, then snarled. "Puny human!" it roared, in a basso profundo voice. "Leave Hulk _alone_!"

For a bare moment Harry froze, confused. _How can it see me_? he thought in bewilderment. _I'm under the Cloak_! Then the Hulk surged to his feet, muscles rippling, and bared his teeth in a snarl of rage, and Harry's Auror skills took over. His wand snapped up, pointing toward the behemoth, and he shouted, "_Dormius Profundum Suscitos_!" at the same time moving his wand in the complicated patterns needed to evoke the spell.

The Hulk collapsed to his knees and fell forward, just barely catching himself on his hands. "Hulk smash…puny…human…" it growled, then fell over on its side. "Hulk…crush…" but then the creature rolled over onto its back and lay still. "Hulk…tired…" he muttered, as Harry watched warily from beneath the Cloak. And just that quickly, it seemed, the fight was over. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He removed the Cloak, stowing it in his mokeskin pouch again. Now he could see about those chains…

There were several boulders nearby; Harry went over to the nearest one and began Transfiguring it into a length of chain long enough to wrap around the Hulks arms and legs. It would take a few seconds to complete the spell — he needed a couple dozen yards of chain, at least, to secure the monster…

The _man_-monster, Harry reminded himself. The Hulk had been a human once, at least according to the suspect letter. But he saw no reason to doubt that part of it. In any case, the Hulk could speak; Harry had to assume it was intelligent enough to understand what was happening to it once it woke up again. He didn't want to make things _too_ uncomfortable for it. To do anything more than what was needed to keep it from attacking others would be cruel.

With the chains Transfigured, Harry turned his wand back toward the Hulk, using the Hover Charm to lift the creature's body a few feet in the air. The Hulk must weight upwards of a thousand pounds, Harry estimated, as its body rose very slowly in the air. The chains he'd created shot out from where they lay, wrapping around the Hulk's arms and legs, and Harry had them both pull tight, then magically fastened the first and last links to each other, securing the chains. _That should hold him_! Harry thought, pleased that he was able to end this conflict so quickly —

The Hulk's eyes opened, and with a roar of rage it snapped the chain binding its arms, sending broken links flying in all directions. Surprised, Harry still managed to create a Shield Charm to protect himself, and bits of broken metal ricocheted off his shield.

This Hulk was a lot stronger than he'd supposed, Harry realized, watching as it reached down and ripped the chain binding its legs apart. The Hover Charm broke and the Hulk slammed into the ground, but was instantly on its feet again and looking menacingly at Harry.

"Puny human attacks Hulk!" the monster roared, then reached down and grabbed two large rocks from the ground. Holding one in each hand, arms spread wide, the Hulk growled, "Leave Hulk alone!" then slammed the rocks together, sending a hail of broken pieces toward Harry.

_Time to retreat_, Harry thought. He would have to come up with a better strategy. He turned on the spot and Disapparated just as the shards of rock reached him.

Harry reappeared where he'd first awakened, then grunted and sat down hard on the ground, a hand going to a sharp pain in his right side. He felt a sticky warm wetness and realized that a piece of broken rock had hit him. It hadn't penetrated deeply but there was a grinding pain that told him it had fractured a rib or two. _Just marvelous_, he thought, angry at himself for being wounded. He would lose precious time tending to his injuries while the Hulk was doing who-knows-what.

Harry laid back, flat on the ground, to make it easier to extract the piece of rock from his side. The Auror training included basic first aid spells for setting broken bones and repairing wounds. Harry put his wand tip over the hole in his side and muttered the spell to draw the rock from his side, gritting his teeth in pain as it wriggled free. "Urgh," he grunted as the rock popped out and dropped on the ground beside him.

"_Episkey_," he muttered, and moaned as the cracked ribs painfully mended themselves. That was the worst of it, he knew. A final spell conjured a bandage to cover the wound in his side. Harry sat up, grunting as pain shot through him, pain he didn't have time for if he was going to find a way to keep the Hulk from reaching any nearby towns.

The mysterious writer of the letter he'd found earlier had told the truth about one thing, at least: the Hulk _was_ resistant to magic. It had awakened from Harry's Bewitched Sleep spell and that should _not_ have happened. Neither should the Hulk have been able to see Harry beneath his Invisibility Cloak!

Anomalies like this would make for some interesting conversations with the Weasleys and Hermione over a few butterbeers after this was all over, but right now Harry didn't have enough time to think about them — he had to contain the Hulk, somehow. And if the Hulk was resistant to magic he would have to do it indirectly — not using magic _on_ the Hulk, but in ways to affect the _environment_ to control or contain him — which, if the way he'd shattered those chains earlier, was not going to be easy…

Harry paused, listening to a sound that had begun to intrude on his thoughts. It was a low, thrumming sound, seemingly coming from all around him, and it was getting louder by the second. Then the ground began to shudder with each _thrum_, and Harry realized the Hulk must be on the move, and coming directly toward him. Sure enough, when Harry ran forward, to the edge of the grove he'd first appeared in, he could see the Hulk crossing the field toward him. His speed was incredible — he must be traveling four or five times as fast as a normal man could run! At his speed, he would be at the grove in seconds. Harry tensed, preparing for a fight he was unsure how to win.

But halfway across the clearing, the Hulk suddenly took a long, low leap forward, then _jumped_, shooting upward into the sky! Harry ran out of the grove, following the arc of the Hulk's leap until he disappeared beyond the horizon of the tree grove. "Bloody hell," Harry muttered, frustrated yet relieved at the same time. The Hulk had decided to run away, but that didn't make things any easier for Harry, who still had to stop him before he reached a populated area. Fortunately, there was a simple way for him to follow the man-monster. Harry reached into his mokeskin bag and pulled out a broom, a Nimbus 2100. Not the top broomstick in the Wizarding world these days (that honor still went to the Firebolt) but it was affordable, and having a broom was a handy item for occasions just like this. Harry quickly mounted the Nimbus and took off into the sky.

Once Harry was in the air, the figure of the Hulk was immediately noticeable as it bounded in miles-long leaps across the increasingly drier, rockier terrain. Harry had no idea how far they were from any populated areas, but he couldn't let the Hulk get close to one. He urged the Nimbus forward, shooting around the Hulk and getting in front of him. Harry pointed his wand and shouted, "_Descendo_!" The Hulk immediately began to fall earthward, slamming into the ground and blasting out a crater. Harry flew downward as well, taking the fight to the Hulk.

But even as he neared the ground the Hulk had clambered to his feet within the bowl of the crater he'd made, glaring up at Harry. "Stupid human makes Hulk mad!" he shouted at him. "The madder Hulk gets, the _stronger_ Hulk gets!" He surged up out of the crater, grabbing a boulder several times his size and heaving it effortlessly at Harry, who easily dodged it. _I need a new strategy_, Harry thought, as the Hulk looked around for another boulder to heave at him. _I wonder what would happen if I tried to just _talk_ to it_? _If this Hulk was once a human, could I get through the monster and talk to the man inside it_?

Well, it was worth a try, at least.

Harry landed around twenty yards from the Hulk, stepping off his broom and leaving it where it lay; he didn't want anything threatening in his hands, even a broomstick. "Hulk, stop!" he said, holding up his empty hands. "I don't want to fight you."

"Puny human tries to trick Hulk!" it growled at him, suspicious. "Puny humans always try to trick Hulk!"

"No trick," Harry shook his head, speaking slowly. "I don't want us to fight. You don't need to hurt anyone."

"Puny humans hurt Hulk!" the behemoth said, almost accusingly. "Puny humans won't leave Hulk alone. Hulk wants to be left alone."

"I understand," Harry nodded, moving slowly forward. A little closer and he could use some of the Legilimency techniques he'd been trained in; if he could understand the Hulk's motivations he could use them to convince the creature he meant him no harm, and if he could calm it down enough he might convince it not to attack anyone.

If not… well, he might have to use the Imperius Curse and simply command the Hulk to obey him. _If_ it worked on him in the first place…

"I want to be left alone sometimes, too," Harry murmured, keeping his voice low and non-threatening. He had finally caught the Hulk's eye, and was trying to see past the surface layers of the creature's mind, the levels that were filled with rage and unhappiness. If he were more advanced in Legilimency, Harry might have been able to influence the Hulk to become calmer, less enraged, but it was all he could do now just to sort out his emotions and try to soothe them. "We can find some place where you can be left alone."

"Hulk wants to go home," the creature said, almost plaintively.

"Where is home?" Harry asked, still making eye contact, but the Hulk seemed not to understand. "Where is home, Hulk?" Harry repeated, trying to get him to think about a location.

"Home…" The idea was beginning to filter through; Harry could see the idea forming in the Hulk's thoughts. "Hulk wants…to go…home…" The words were disjointed, slurred, and Hulk seemed to stagger as he finished speaking. Harry reached for his thoughts, to learn where he called home, but the Hulk shook himself then glared at Harry.

"Puny human is in Hulk's head!" he roared, clenching his fists menacingly.

"No!" Harry raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I mean you no harm —" He was dangerously close to the Hulk; only fifteen yards separated them at the moment —

The Hulk charged.

Harry instantly Apparated behind the Hulk, his wand out and trained on the creature's back even as he reappeared, thirty yards from where he'd been. His Legilimency wasn't nearly advanced enough for him to affect the Hulk's mind to any degree; he would have to resort to more straightforward — and less desirable — methods. "_Imperio_!" Harry said loudly.

The Hulk's body jerked convulsively. _Relax_, Harry commanded, but the sensation flowing down his arm, the curious sensation he hadn't felt since he, Hermione, Ron and Griphook invaded Gringotts in 1998, was nothing like what he'd felt then. His arm shook with the effort of touching the Hulk's mind.

The Hulk was feeling it as well. The green behemoth shook his head confusedly, trying to shake loose the euphoria of surrender flowing into him. "Hulk — _won't_!" the monster snarled, slamming his hands against his head to drive the sensations from it. "Get — out — of — Hulk's — head!"

_Relax_, Harry thought again, harder, gritting his teeth, then taking his wand in both hands, as if holding it tighter would somehow make the curse work. _Be calm_! _You don't need to fight me_!

The Hulk had turned and was walking slowly, haltingly, toward Harry, still batting its own head back and forth between its huge hands, trying to drive the voice out. It was fifteen yards away, then ten, and Harry was tempted to throw the Cruciatus Curse, to bring the Hulk down with pain —

But no. The monster was fueled by rage, and the pain of the Cruciatus, awful as it was (and Harry knew firsthand just _how_ awful) would only fuel that rage even more, making the creature stronger. It had as much as said so, earlier: _The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets_. The Imperius _had_ to get through.

Because if it didn't, he was going to have a hell of a fight on his hands.

The Hulk's movements had slowed to almost a crawl but he was still moving forward. The Imperius was working but _not enough_. What else could he do to stop the Hulk without seriously harming him? Auror training was meant to train you to detect, track and stop or apprehend Dark wizards, it didn't necessarily make you more creative in spell-casting — but there was enough material laying around where that he should be able to come up with _something_.

Harry took a few steps back and dropped his arms, ending the spell, then Disapparated before the Hulk could charge him again. The Hulk looked around, trying to see where he went, but Harry had appeared near a rock outcropping forty yards from the creature and stepped behind it. There were a lot of rocks and boulders here, and Harry had a few ideas how to use them.

The Hulk was still looking around, nearly satisfied he'd been left alone again, when a nearby pile of rocks suddenly stood up, taking on a barely humanoid form. Another pile of rocks did the same thing, and a third. The three stone creatures began advancing on the Hulk, moving to surround him.

"Puny rock men attack Hulk?" the Hulk snarled, almost sounding contemptuous. "Hulk will smash them!"

_Maybe not_, Harry thought, watching from behind the outcropping. It had taken some effort, but he had put Unbreakable Charms on the rocks before casting the spell that animated them into humanoid shapes. Even the Hulk (Harry _hoped_) would not be able to break an object that had been made Unbreakable. The rock men's task was to hold the Hulk as long as they could while Harry figured out a more permanent way to counteract his strength and rage.

The rock men reached the Hulk, and the behemoth slammed a fist into the closest one, sending it flying across the rocky plain. It slammed into a rock outcropping, then fell forward onto the ground, separating into its constituent pieces. But a moment the rocks reformed their humanoid shape and began walking back toward the Hulk as it battled the other rock creatures, which were attempting to grab hold of his arms and restrain him.

Hulk shook one rock man loose, flinging him away, but the other one had grabbed his arm and twisted it behind the Hulk, and the first rock man, returning to the fray, had grabbed the other arm and was wrestling it behind the Hulk as well. The Hulk roared in anger and frustration, but the third rock man grabbed his legs from behind, and the creatures on his arms forced him forward onto the ground, pinning him.

"Hulk smash puny rock men!" the Hulk howled furiously, but it looked like they had the upper hand on him. _For the moment_, Harry reminded himself. If the Hulk kept getting stronger as his anger increased, he would eventually be able to overpower the rock creatures. And Harry would be no closer to stopping him than before.

The Hulk was jerking back and forth, trying to shake off the rock-creatures' hold on him. He would likely escape before long, and if Harry couldn't come up with another way to stop him —

Ministry protocol on dangerous, uncontrollable creatures, whether they were Being or Beast, called for termination if harm to other humans was imminent. It was considered self-defense, both for the Auror and for non-combatants in the area — an "out" that gave the Auror a justification for killing.

But Harry had caused enough death already, even if only indirectly. Everyone that had died in the Second War with Voldemort had died because of him. Order of the Phoenix members, Ministry personnel, witches and wizards who'd fought with them at Hogwarts — even Death Eaters, even _Voldemort's_ death, as necessary as it was, were all on his conscience. Harry had caused enough death already in his short twenty years of life. If there was anything he could do, _anything_, to keep from taking a life, he would do it.

The fight was progressing badly for the rock men. The Hulk had grabbed one around its "neck" — really just a melon-sized rock that held the pumpkin-sized rock on its "shoulders," and squeezed it between his forearm and bicep. Nothing was happening, but the Hulk's expression became progressively wilder until — the rock suddenly burst into pieces! The Hulk had actually broken an object that had been Unbreakable-Charmed!

After that the Hulk seemed to know what to do. Instead of simply hitting the rock men, he grabbed them and began squeezing them until they shattered. Soon the plain they had fought on was littered with rocky debris. And Harry was running out of options to combat the man-monster.

Talking with him hadn't worked. Going up against him physically, even indirectly, wasn't working. Trying to take him on directly would be foolhardy in the extreme. Auror training was comprehensive but it didn't train you to take on creatures like _this_ — an oversight Harry planned to bring to the attention of the Head's office, assuming he survived.

But how could he fight a being like _this_, someone with enough strength to shatter an object made Unbreakable? If only there was a way to neutralize that strength, to keep the Hulk from bringing it to bear against things Harry created! Even iron bands inches thick, Transfigured around the Hulk's arms and legs, would eventually succumb to his ever-increasing strength.

The Hulk had finished roaring in victory over the shattered rocks that had been attacking him. "Hulk breaks puny rock-men! Hulk is strongest one there is!" _It would seem so_, Harry silently agreed. He needed a solution, fast, before the Hulk decided to leap away and Harry was forced to give chase. They must still be miles away from any human population, but with the miles-long leaps the Hulk was capable of, a few bounds could change that situation quickly, and Harry would be forced to act to protect them.

His arm came up involuntarily, to cast a Prismatic Sphere spell around the Hulk, to keep him from bounding away. But he held off the spell — the Hulk would merely start bashing the sphere walls, trying to break it, and eventually Harry's energy would run out and the Hulk would succeed. Once the spell was cast, the sphere remained immobile, and even though the caster could pass through the walls unharmed, no one else could — in fact they would be harmed if they tried. But that probably wouldn't apply to the Hulk. If he could just make the sphere _move_ —

But _wait a minute_. He didn't have to use a spell! What if he could create a physical shell around the Hulk, one big enough that he couldn't press against opposite sides at the same time, and made it Unbreakable? That would take quite a large shell, probably eleven or twelve feet in diameter, and the energy he'd expend making it Unbreakable would be significant. But once he was inside a sphere like that, the Hulk couldn't squeeze it between his hands or arms, and he couldn't touch both sides at the same time, so he couldn't break it that way either!

But he had to act quickly — the Hulk had been looking around, probably trying to find Harry, and was now eyeing the skies. Harry stepped out from behind the outcropping and once again incanted, "_Dormius Profundum Suscitos_!" the Bewitched Sleep Charm before the Hulk could turn and charge him. Once again the man-monster dropped to the ground, asleep.

But not for long, Harry knew. The spell had lasted barely a minute the last time he cast it on the Hulk, and he had to assume it would last even less time now. His eyes found a decent-sized rock and he began Transfiguring it, envisioning a hollow sphere ten — no, twelve — feet in diameter. The sphere would be of glass; Harry wanted to be able to see the Hulk inside it, so he could know what it was doing. Transfiguring a sphere twelve feet in diameter, even a hollow one, was going to take a fair amount of energy; Charming that sphere to be Unbreakable would take even more energy. The sphere formed, and Harry cast the Unbreakable Charm on it, staggering afterwards. He was getting tired. But he still had one final spell to cast.

The Hulk was lying on his back, his arms splayed out to either side. Harry walked over to his side, slower than usual because of the energy he'd just expended, and picked up a rock lying near the unconscious man-monster.

"_Portus_," he said, tapping the rock, and it glowed blue for a moment. He dropped the rock onto the Hulk's open hand. After a five second delay it would —

The Hulk's hand suddenly clamped shut, and his eyes snapped open. "Puny human!" he roared, seeing Harry standing over him. Harry backpedaled, but tripped over his own legs and fell. The Hulk was up in a moment, standing over him, then reached for him with his open hand. Harry flinched and closed his eyes, expecting to be grabbed and crushed —

There was a loud _whoosh_ and crack as the Hulk vanished, and air rushed into the Hulk-sized hole he'd left behind. Harry slowly opened his eyes. The Portkey he'd created had sent the Hulk into the hollow sphere. Inside the sphere, the Hulk was looking around, confused and enraged by the sudden confinement. As Harry watched, he slammed his fist against the sphere several times, to no effect.

Harry watched, barely breathing though he felt like gulping air — he felt drained of energy and breath from the spell casting he'd just performed. After smashing his fists against the sphere several more times, the Hulk began rolling it around the plain, slamming it into boulders and rock outcroppings, trying to break it that way. He even rolled it toward Harry, who rolled out of its way barely in time, then dragged himself to his feet and Apparated behind a stand of boulders.

After resting a few moments to recover some strength and catch his breath, Harry peered around the boulders to see what Hulk was doing. The unbreakable glass sphere was embedded halfway into the ground — the Hulk was jumping up and down inside it, trying to break it that way. He probably wasn't going to succeed, but… Harry couldn't take that chance. He had to keep the sphere away from objects that might break it; if for example the Hulk tried to wedge it between two rocks…

"_Wingardium Leviosa_!" Harry cried, swishing and flicking his wand in the prescribed manner, and the sphere slowly rose into the air. The Hulk was heavy, Harry realized — he could barely get it six feet off the ground. The Hulk was now showing a burst of frenzied energy; he slammed into the walls of the sphere, sending it flying one way across the plain, then another, then high into the air, and back down almost to the ground.

How long this went on, Harry had no idea. The effort to keep the sphere aloft was rapidly depleting whatever energy he had left, but he couldn't take the chance the Hulk might find a way on the ground to break the sphere and escape, with Harry too tired to follow him.

But something was happening to the Hulk as well. He was leaning against the wall of the sphere, his chest expanding and contracting rapidly. That was confusing — what was going — oh! Harry suddenly realized he'd made no allowance for air inside the sphere! Could the Hulk be that powerful and still susceptible to running out of air?

Maybe it didn't matter now, because Harry had exhausted all of his energy. The sphere dropped to the ground, and Harry fell forward, barely conscious. He would have to cancel the Unbreakable Charm on the sphere and hope the Hulk could shatter it before he became unconscious. Otherwise he would suffocate inside the sphere with no air to breathe. As for Harry — they might throw him out of the Aurors, assuming he even survived this, but he wasn't going to cause the death of another being, not even someone like the Hulk.

Harry slowly lifted his wand, murmuring "_Fi_— _Fi_— _Fini_—" But before he could end the spell on the sphere his wand slipped from his nerveless fingers, and he passed into darkness.

=ooo=

When Harry awoke sometime later, he was still lying where he'd fallen, but there was no sign of the sphere, or the Hulk. _Had he somehow gotten away_? Harry dimly wondered, trying to organize his thoughts. His wand was on the ground in front of him, and he slowly picked it up, wondering what he should do next. Auror protocol required him to reassess the situation and report to HQ for further direction, but before Harry could do even that much he would have to get some food and water in himself; his stomach felt like he hadn't eaten for a week.

Harry stood, slowly, trying to determine which direction he should go. As he stood, he felt something slide off the back of his shirt. Looking around, he found another envelope on the ground. It was the same kind of envelope he'd found earlier, made of Muggle paper and sealed shut.

This time, instead of picking it up himself, Harry bent over it with his wand, casting several detection spells, trying to determine who had last touched it. If he knew the person, there were spells that would reveal who it was. But whoever had dropped this on his back while he was unconscious was a stranger to him. Now, though, he could cast similar spells on anyone he met to determine if they were the person who'd handled the envelope.

Harry levitated the envelope up to chest level (slowly — he was still tired from his ordeal earlier) and slit the envelope open with a spell, then drew what was inside out magically, without touching it. It was another letter.

_Bravo, Harry!_

_Brilliant job handling the Hulk! I was quite impressed that you were able to "forget" to allow for him to breathe inside the sphere you created, which was itself a masterful way to neutralize his strength._

_Forget? Harry was thinking. He'd been tired, not thinking clearly — of course I'd forgotten to Charm the sphere so the Hulk could breathe! Did he think Harry had done that on purpose?_

But _had_ he? In retrospect, he'd seen that situation before — when Hermione had trapped Rita Skeeter in her Animagus beetle form inside a glass jar that had an Unbreakable Charm on it. She'd told them on the trip back to London that the jar had an Air-Freshening Charm cast inside it as well, so she could keep it sealed the entire time Skeeter was in the jar. Harry looked back at the letter.

_I'm so impressed with your handling of the Hulk, Harry, that I confess an interest in seeing just how well you can handle yourself in a similar situation with another opponent._

Harry grimaced. He was definitely not interested in repeating anything like this again!

_I know that's not something you want to hear, my lad, so I hasten to point out you really have no choice._

_You think so_? Harry was tempted to reach out and crumple the letter in anger, but he needed to keep from touching it so it could be used by the Auror Department to trace whoever had written it.

_By the way, unless this letter is touched by a human hand within a minute after it leaves the envelope it came in, they will both disintegrate. That's the only way you'll have any clue as to who I am. The choice is yours._

The letter ended there. _Clever_, Harry realized, chagrinned. His touch on the letter would make tracing its author harder, but not impossible. Harry reached out, taking the letter.

Another paragraph appeared below the last one, which Harry quickly read.

_If you're reading this you've decided to keep the letter. By doing so you've also decided to keep playing our game — the letter is a Portkey that will take you to your next opponent by the time you read —_

The familiar hook behind the navel sensation suddenly caught Harry as he and the letter disappeared in a whooshing whirlwind of color.

=ooo=

**Author's Note: This started as a one-shot, but I imagine there are numerous other characters Harry could go up against.**


	2. Dirty Harry

Harry Potter Versus

**Chapter Two**

**Dirty Harry**

_Updated May 11, 2012_

=ooo=

When Harry next opened his eyes, he found himself seated in a booth in what appeared to be a restaurant or café. Wherever the Portkey had taken him, he'd been unconscious for a while, he estimated. He glanced at his right wrist but his watch was now missing. _Why now_? Harry wondered. _Why not take it before I fought the Hulk_?

He was no longer as exhausted as he'd been when he'd awakened after defeating the Hulk, though he was still hungry. _And_ he was in a restaurant, Harry reminded himself. Part of being an Auror was knowing how to keep yourself in optimum condition to do your job, under any circumstances. But before he could do anything about the emptiness in his stomach, he had to assess the situation for potential threats.

There was a menu lying on the table in front of him. Harry picked it up and pretended to study it as he glanced around the café. The row of booths he was in stretched out in front of him, seven or eight total including the one he was in, along the length of one wall. His booth was the last one in the row; the back wall of the café was behind him, and he could see a small hallway leading into the back. There was a counter running along the opposite side of the room, with six small tables placed between the booths and the counter. Each table had three or four chairs around it. The counter had a row of barstools in front of it; Harry counted twelve in total. The front wall was glass, and the street outside was visible, with people walking by and cars passing in the street. Stenciled on the glass were the words Acorn Café.

The café wasn't very full. Two or three of the booths had customers in them, silently eating their meals. Behind the counter was a bald, burly man in a white cap who was wiping down the countertop. There was one person at the counter, a man wearing a business suit and, a bit incongruously, a driving cap. He was forking eggs and bacon into his mouth and sipping at coffee. Watching him eat was reminding Harry of his own empty stomach.

Nobody appeared to be paying any attention to him except the counter man, who was probably waiting for him to order something. Harry began perusing the menu in earnest. Given the sign on the front window and the menu itself, he was in an English-speaking country; he was probably still in America, if that was where he'd been when he fought the Hulk. He should have some American currency in his mokeskin pouch, enough to pay for a meal at least.

There was a small glass of ice water at his elbow that Harry had noticed while surveying the room. He picked it up and drained it in three gulps. The cold liquid felt good going down his throat, but it wasn't going to substitute for some real food. The menu was a single page, but had quite a few selections on it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was a note over the breakfast section saying, "Breakfast served anytime." That was good, because Harry felt a plateful of eggs, sausage and toast would make him feel loads better.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry caught another object on the table, resting near the far edge. It was a folded newspaper, and Harry realized he could find out more about where he was from the information in it. He leaned forward slowly, reaching out a hand —

"Hey, sweetie," a female voice said, almost in his ear, and Harry jumped, startled. The waitress had totally surprised him. "Sorry," she said, giggling. "Didn't mean to scare ya. Ready to order?"

"S'okay," Harry said. "Yeah, um… can I get the 'Golden Gate Special' please?"

The waitress scribbled on her order pad. "Anything to drink, sweetie?"

Harry glanced at his empty water glass. "Er — a cup of tea, please."

The waitress made a sad face. "Oh, I'm sorry, we just put it on to brew. Nobody normally orders tea in the morning."

"Oh." Harry thought for a moment. "Coffee, then."

"Okay!" the waitress said brightly. "I'll get that right out to you!" She turned and hurried away, calling out, "Joe! One Gate Special!"

Harry reached over and pulled the folded paper back to him. It was the _San Francisco Chronicle_ and the date on it was August 2, 2000. Well, that told him when and where he was; now all he needed to know was how he'd gotten here and who had done this to him.

Of course Harry was also perfectly aware that his opponent could burst through the front door of this café at any moment, attacking him and endangering every innocent nearby. There was no letter from his mysterious kidnapper this time, so Harry was going to have to guess who his opponent might be.

The waitress brought a coffee cup, a creamer filled with milk, and a pot of coffee, and filled the cup for Harry, who nodded thanks. There was a small container filled with packets against the wall, and Harry reached out and grabbed it. Inside were packets of sugar, something called "Sweet and Low," and something called "Non-Dairy Creamer." Harry took a couple of sugar packets and dumped them into his coffee, then tasted it. Urgh, bitter! He dumped another packet in and tasted again. Not good, but better. Harry stirred in some milk and began sipping from the cup, wishing he could have some tea instead.

"Hey, Harry!" Harry looked up as the counterman suddenly called his name, but the man wasn't looking at him; instead he seemed to be addressing the man eating at the counter, who was drinking the last of his cup of coffee. "Charlene just reminded me — ain't today your last day on the force?"

"Yep," the man nodded. His voice was gruff and grizzled. He wiped away a bit of coffee on his lip with the back of his hand and set the cup down. "How about one more for the road?" he asked, pointing to the cup. The counterman grabbed a pot off a heater and began filling it.

"Gonna miss it?" the counter guy asked with a smirk, as he set the coffee pot back on its heater.

"Nope," the man replied, picking up the cup and drinking it black. Harry winced, remember how bitter it tasted _with_ sugar in it. "Been on the job forty years, now — joined in 1960. A long time. I figure a man's got to know his limitations. Oh, and I been wantin' to tell you something, Charlie — I guess today's my last chance: this coffee has always tasted like goat piss."

Harry snorted laughter under his breath. _That_ was something he could agree with!

The counter guy laughed as well. "Maybe you should come to work for me. Christ knows you've eaten here long enough to know the routine, doncha think?"

"Nah," Harry the customer said. "I'd just eat up your profits." He swung around on the stool and stood. He was tall, Harry noticed. "Speaking of piss — I gotta go take one. Be right back."

The man disappeared down the hallway leading into the back of the café. Harry, pretending to study the menu, followed him with his eyes until he heard a door open and close. Harry scanned the rest of the café, watching to see if anyone else had paid attention to the tall man, but no one seemed to have noticed his leaving the room. Needing something to do while he waited, Harry opened the folded newspaper, intending to glance through the headlines.

An envelope fell out of the unfolded paper. Harry looked at it; the envelope was addressed simply to

_Harry_

Harry suspected this wasn't for the man who'd just gone to the bathroom. He tore open the envelope and found a letter inside. It read,

**Now that you've finally found this letter, I hope you'll appreciate that I've given you a chance to rest and recover before your next little adventure. You were almost dead on your feet by the time you took care of the Hulk — that doesn't bode well for your chances for surviving this next test.**

_What kind of test was this supposed to be_? Harry wondered, grimly. Whoever was doing this couldn't be with the Auror Department — the Ministry didn't expend _this_ kind of effort for a single Auror, not even Harry Potter!

**But not for the reason you think. I have something different in mind after your fight with the Hulk. This time, you'll be working _with_ someone, not against them. The big guy eating at the counter is who you'll be partnering with. Your assignment (the first part) is to stay with him for the rest of today, when he'll officially retire from the San Francisco Police Department.**

**Your partner is Inspector Harry Callahan. He has something of a "reputation" with the SFPD. In the past 30-odd years as a detective with the police, Callahan has killed 49 criminals in the line of duty; the last one was killed only two days ago, the day he was set to retire (your birthday, by the way). He's spent the last two days clearing up that loose end. Chief of Police Fred Lau has threatened to lock him up "no matter what it takes" if he kills anyone else before he retires at the end of the day.**

**That's where you come in. The second part of your assignment is to make sure Callahan doesn't kill anyone today before he retires. If he does, you fail.**

**In addition, I should probably warn you that Callahan's partners don't have a high survival rate. Of the ten partners he's had since 1971, only three have survived, and all have been wounded or maimed. So good —**

The paper was suddenly snatched from his hand. "Hey!" Harry said, then stopped as he stared up at the man who'd taken it from him. It was Callahan, staring down at him with eyes so narrowed they appeared almost squeezed shut.

"I was wondering when you'd get around to reading this," Callahan said, sitting down in the booth across from Harry. He had his cup of coffee in his other hand. "Saw it poking out of the corner of the paper on your table." He read over the letter, then looked back at Harry. "What's this all about?" he asked, sipping at his coffee.

"I don't know," Harry answered, which was the truth as far as it went. He had _no idea_ why someone was making him do these things. "I think this is someone's idea of a joke." A sick joke, to be sure, but he could hardly explain what his real situation was.

"Well, I don't need a partner," Callahan said, tossing the letter on the table in front of Harry. "That letter's right — people don't survive long around me."

"That's fine with me," Harry said. He tapped the letter in front of him. "This is someone's idea of a joke, anyway," he said, with a shrug. He would let the detective think he'd been dissuaded, but Harry would follow him using his Invisibility Cloak and keep an eye on him. It would be a lot simpler that way.

Harry's meal arrived: a plate of three fried eggs, a half-dozen sausages and two slices of toast. It didn't look like a lot to Harry, but he didn't want to feel overstuffed either. He began eating, half-expecting the detective to go back to the counter.

But instead Callahan picked up the paper Harry had set aside and began looking it over. From behind the counter Charlie called out, "Hey Harry, didja see your picture on the front page? You're a celebrity!"

"Dunno 'bout that," Callahan grunted, shaking his head and dropping the paper on the table. "The department's probably happy to be rid of me." Upside down, Harry could see the man's picture and the caption above it: "Frisco Detective Retires After 40 Years."

"Forty years is pretty impressive," Charlie pointed out. "Hell, I been workin' in this joint for over thirty and I don't think I'm going to make it to forty —"

A bell jingled as the café door opened and three men walked in, all of them wearing long trench coats. Incongruous as that was on a hot August day, Harry instantly went on alert. Callahan, seeing Harry's expression, slowly set his cup down and slid his right hand inside his jacket. There was a wide-angle mirror in the corner above Harry's head, and the detective looked up, watching the men who had just entered. "Get ready to duck, kid," he muttered, as the three men stepped up to the counter.

The counter man had stiffened as the men entered; it looked to Harry like he recognized them. "What the hell do _you_ punks want?" he demanded.

The man closest to the counter brought up a double-barrel shotgun, pointing it at the counter man. The other two men produced pistols and pointed them at the customers in the booths. The man with the shotgun gestured toward the empty plate on the counter. "Where's our boy Callahan?" he asked. "He's supposed to be having his last breakfast this morning."

"He — left," Charlie said, eyeing the shotgun pointed at his chest. "Got a call — went out the back."

"Did he?" The guy looked down the hallway, then his eyes fell on Harry, who was staring at him. "Is that true, kid?" He swung the shotgun to point in Harry's direction. "Did the guy sitting here run out the back door?"

Harry nodded. "Y-yeah," he said, trying not to glance toward Callahan, who was still sitting with his hand inside his jacket. "He did."

"What about you, Grampa?" Shotgun Guy's gaze went to Callahan, whose back was toward him. "You agree with sonny boy here?"

"Close enough, scumbag," Callahan said, loudly.

Several things happened simultaneously. Charlie reached under the counter, pulling out a revolver and pointed it at the shotgun-wielding criminal, who spun around with the shotgun, firing it point-blank at the counter man's chest. Callahan withdrew his hand from his jacket, producing the _biggest_ handgun Harry had ever seen, and pointed it at the shotgun guy over his left shoulder. Harry drew his wand, casting a Shield Charm between the counter man and the shotgun. At the far end of the café, the other two men were reacting by training their handguns on Callahan and Harry.

The boom from the shotgun was deafening inside the café. The blast slammed Harry's shield into Charlie, who dropped behind the counter, stunned, as the shotgun guy and Callahan brought their weapons to bear on one another.

"_Protego_!" Harry shouted loudly, and felt it form between Callahan and the shotgun guy. Both of the weapons went off at the same time. The sudden impact of bullets and shotgun pellets shattered Harry's Shield but they had been stopped.

"What the _hell_?" Callahan growled. At _this_ range he couldn't have missed! He stood as Shotgun Guy let his now-empty weapon fall while he reached for another weapon.

It was difficult to Apparate from a sitting position but Harry needed to move — Callahan was blocking his view of the other armed men. He twisted and vanished from the booth, reappearing a moment later in the hallway, still in a sitting position, and caught himself before he fell. Harry moved quickly to the end of the hallway where he could see all of the combatants.

Callahan's huge handgun was moving toward the more immediate threat —the two men at the front of the store pointing their guns his way, while Shotgun Guy hadn't found his backup weapon yet. They were too far to Shield in time before Callahan fired, but if he formed a Shield too close to the detective his bullet might ricochet back and hit _him_. Harry pointed his wand at the detective and thought _Depulso_!

The Banishing Charm pushed Callahan sideways, into the booth and against the wall, stunning him. Harry hadn't intended to push him that hard but it had the desired effect: the two men fired at the detective but their bullets slammed harmlessly into the back wall of the café. Shotgun Guy had just produced a large handgun of his own, but he ducked as the two men behind him fired, then spun around and shouted, "Watch where you're shooting! You coulda hit _me_!"

Harry repeated the Banishing Charm, this time aiming at Shotgun Guy, and he flew through the air, slamming into the other two men and knocking them into the front window, which thankfully didn't shatter.

And that ended it. Everyone in the café — Callahan, Charlie, and their three assailants — were unconscious, except for the customers in the other booths, and their attention had been on the men with the guns. After a moment Harry became aware that a woman was screaming; Charlene had run out from the kitchen and gone over to where Charlie lay; she was trying to wake him. Harry took the momentary confusion to slip his Invisibility Cloak out of his pouch and disappear under it. It would be hard enough explain what he was doing in the café even _without_ the complications of him, a British citizen, being in America illegally and carrying the things he was carrying.

**=ooo=**

It was almost noon before things were sorted out over the café incident. Under his Invisibility Cloak, Harry had Apparated outside of the front of the building, where he watched as police cars, ambulances, SWAT trucks and unmarked cars began arriving and cutting off access to the block.

Charlie was brought out on a stretcher, put in an ambulance (with Charlene accompanying him) and sent off to the emergency room. The three gunmen were led out, in handcuffs, and put inside a paddy wagon. Callahan came out, escorted by police as well; he spent the next few hours talking to various people, both uniformed and not.

It all seemed very disconnected and chaotic, nothing like what an Auror investigation was supposed to look like. An Auror team of only three Aurors would have had this same situation sorted in less than an hour, Harry thought, even if only one of the parties involved was a wizard. He was too far away to hear most of went back and forth between Callahan and his interrogators; there were too many officers and plainclothes milling about for him to approach any closer, but in a moment of boredom Harry had found a pair of Extendable Ears in his mokeskin pouch, and sent the business end to rest near where Callahan and two other important-looking men were talking.

"Like I _said_," Callahan's tone was clearly annoyed. "I had no idea who those boys were, but they sure seemed to know me."

"We know who they are," one of the men responded; his tone was similar to Callahan's. "The Donnelly brothers, James and John, and Peter Murphy. Known as the Unholy Trio because of their names — Peter, James and John. They've got connections with the Lanza crime family."

"I've busted a few of those Lanza boys in the past," Callahan noted. "You think they decided to come gunning for me today?"

"We don't know," the third man said. "We'll question them downtown. Kind of unusual for you, Callahan — you actually let the bad guys live."

"It wasn't for lack of trying," Callahan growled in his gravelly voice. "I don't know how I missed a shot at only six feet."

"Or how that shotgun blast missed you," the first guy added. "They found shotgun pellets all over the place in there, but none of 'em were embedded in the walls behind you. Craziest thing I ever saw."

Callahan took note at that. "Where's the kid that was in there?" he asked. "Those boys expected to find me at the counter, where I usually eat, but I was talking to a kid in the last booth when they walked in."

The other two men looked at one another. "We took statements from everyone in there who wasn't involved in the shooting," one of them finally replied. "But we didn't find no kid in there, Callahan, not in the booth, not anywhere."

"Really?" Callahan grunted, and fell silent as one of the men answered a call on his cell phone. He listened for a few moments, then said goodbye.

"That was the Chief," he told Callahan as he put the phone away. "He said to tell you, you really dodged a bullet today. He wasn't kidding about taking you off the street if you killed one more perp, justified or not. For the protection of all the decent citizens in Frisco."

"Yeah, the Chief's a real sweetheart, isn't he?" Callahan muttered. "Always looking out for the little guy."

"Watch your mouth," the other man said, warningly. "You managed 49 kills in your career without being charged with a homicide, Callahan. That's a damned impressive record, if I say so myself."

"Yeah, well say whatever you want," Callahan told him. "But every one of 'em deserved it."

"Oh, and the Chief wants you down at the Hall ASAP," the man with the phone said. "So you better hustle your ass over there, pronto."

No one spoke for several seconds. "How about a ride over?" Callahan finally asked, when it seemed like neither of the two men were going to offer.

"Can't do it," one of the men shook his head. "All our guys are tied up here. Besides," he smirked at Callahan. "You're supposed to be a runner, ain't ya? So run your happy ass over there — it's only a half-mile or so."

"My car's right over there!" Callahan protested, pointing toward the sedan parked in front of the café.

"You mean your _department-issued_ unmarked _squad_ car?" Phone Guy sneered. "Can't let you use it — it might've been booby-trapped while you were eating."

Callahan glared at them. "How about my gun?" he demanded.

Both men shook their heads this time. "We're holding it until you're officially cleared," one of them said. "That's procedure."

"That's bullshit," Callahan told him. "If someone's really gunning for me you're giving them a perfect opportunity to take me out!"

Neither of the other men said anything. Comprehension dawned in Callahan's eyes — Harry saw it because he was thinking the same thing. These men _wanted_ Callahan killed! "I get the picture," Callahan told them. "Assuming things work out _your_ way, I'll see you in hell. And if they don't, you'll see me again soon enough." He turned and walked away, up 7th Street, past the police barricades and turned right on Brannan Street. Harry retracted the Extendable Ears, dropped them in his pouch, and followed the detective, still invisible under his Cloak.

The situation had suddenly changed for Harry. It was one thing to prevent someone from killing people — that was primarily what an Auror _did_ with Dark wizards. But now, it seemed, the hunter had become the hunted. This detective, Inspector Harry Callahan as the letter had called him, had killed nearly fifty men during his career — Harry didn't think even "Mad-Eye" Moody had killed that many Death Eaters in his time with the Auror Department. Whoever was out to get him certainly had reason enough for revenge. But now, even deprived of his weapon and forced to walk head-on into danger, Callahan didn't seem afraid or even apprehensive — he walked with an easy grace, seemingly unconcerned that he might be attacked at any moment. It was impressive to Harry, to say the least.

But at the first corner Callahan paused, looking around slowly. _Was he looking for potential assailants_? Harry wondered, and silently cast Homenum Revelio around them. The spell revealed several humans in the area besides the two of them, but nobody seemed to be watching or tracking Callahan.

Finally, Callahan spoke, in a low voice. "Hey, kid," he said, as if he were addressing Harry. "I dunno if you can hear me, if you can, then…thanks for whatever you did back there.

"I don't much believe in guardian angels," Callahan went on, resuming his slow walk up Brannan street. Invisibly, Harry moved with him. "But whatever you are, you got me out of a jam back there, an' I owe you for that.

"Now, I figure that my two 'pals' back there on the force, Ackerman and Ruskowski, who both made captain a decade or so ago, have got something to do with this," Callahan spoke almost conversationally as he made his way down the street. "Both of them have tried to get me thrown off the force, but the Chief likes the results I get, even if he doesn't care too much for my methods.

"If you were watching when they cut me loose," Callahan stopped at the next intersection, near a sign that said "Lucerne" and below it, a yellow sign that said, Dead End. "They kept my gun but didn't take my shield; that's _not_ proper procedure for shootings involving officers. I got a hunch my badge is the 'trophy' someone's supposed to take to prove I'm dead." He glanced up at the yellow sign. "Kind of appropriate, isn't it?" Underneath the Cloak, Harry grimaced at the detective's black humor. He was certainly being casual enough about his impending death, assuming he was right about an attack being imminent!

Callahan pointed northward, up a side street that had Do Not Enter signs on either corner. "HQ is only a block away, right up that street, but it would be a perfect place for an ambush. The street's one way, and without a weapon I can't do much to defend myself." Callahan then pointed down Brannan street. "But if I remember correctly, there's a place right down the block where I might be able to correct that situation." He set off again at a brisk pace down the street. Harry hurried along after him, wondering where he was headed now.

Two-thirds of the way down the block, Callahan suddenly turned and went into a non-descript business. The door closed slowly behind him, and Harry managed to slip past it as it closed.

Inside was an equally non-descript lobby and counter with a small display case showing several rows of pocket knives. There was a doorway behind the counter with a curtain blocking the view of the back area. The lobby area was empty. Harry moved off to one side to wait and see what the detective planned. Callahan stepped up to the counter and hit a bell on the counter for service.

It was almost a half-minute before someone appeared from the back, a thin, older gentleman who reminded Harry of Mr. Ollivander, the wandmaker. The man had white hair and wide, penetrating eyes that looked Callahan over appraisingly. "May I help you, sir?" he asked, in an old man's voice that was neither pleasant nor rude.

"I'm looking for a knife," Callahan said without preamble.

The old man gestured toward the display case. "As you can see, sir, we have several for you to choose —"

"Too small," Callahan shook his head. "I need something bigger."

The old man hesitated for only a moment before reaching behind the counter and bringing out a tray with several larger blades on it. Harry could see that they were what Muggles called survival or hunting knives.

"Bigger," was all Callahan said.

The old man smiled thinly. "Of course, Inspector," he said, and reached behind the counter a final time, bringing out the biggest knife Harry had ever seen. The blade looked to be a foot long. "This is our finest Bowie knife, sir — 16 and a half inches overall, the blade is the finest stainless steel, the handle is solid hardwood construction. And it comes with a genuine leather sheath. Only fifty dollars." The old man reached down again and pulled out a large sheath, which he dropped on the counter next to the knife.

Callahan picked up the knife, testing its weight and balance. "Nice," was all he said. Then he pointed it at the old man's nose. "Now why don't you explain how you know who I am?"

The old man looked surprised. "You're quite the celebrity, Inspector Callahan. I believe I saw your picture in the paper this morning."

"You sure about that?" Callahan pressed, moving the blade closer to the old man's face. "See, I remember faces, too. And I seem to remember your face as being one of the Lanza brothers — Enrico Lanza, Jimmy's youngest brother, right?"

The old man smiled weakly. "I'm retired, Inspector."

"Nobody retires from the Lanzas," Callahan growled. "I just had a run-in this morning with the Donnelly brothers and Pete Murphy. You might of heard about that?"

Enrico shook his head. "No, Inspector. I'm just an old man who sells knives — I don't know anything about your beef with the Lanza family."

"It's because I don't _have_ a beef with them, dirtbag," Callahan snarled, grabbing the old man by the front of his shirt. Harry tensed, wondering if he would have to stop the detective from hurting him. Whatever his history, the old man hadn't hurt anyone that Harry knew about. "All I'm trying to do," Callahan said, his face inches from Lanza's, "is make it to my retirement without getting killed or killing anyone else — and that's startin' to look pretty unlikely now, either way."

"Congratulations on your retirement," the old man said in a small voice. "Perhaps I could offer you the knife as a — retirement present, yes?"

"Well, that's mighty generous of you," Callahan said, releasing the old man. He picked up the sheath and slid the knife inside it, then slid the knife into his waistband behind his back. "See ya," he nodded at the old man, then turned toward the door. "Still with me, kid?" he muttered under his breath.

If Harry hadn't been staring bemusedly at the old man's relieved expression instead of watching Callahan leave, he would have missed the younger guy who suddenly appeared from the back area, gun drawn and pointing at Callahan's back.

"_Look out_!" Harry shouted as his wand came up and he silently cast a Stunning Spell. The man fired just as the Stunner hit him; his shot went right past Callahan's ear and through the door, leaving a gaping hole. The man flew back through the doorway, pulling the curtains down on top of him as he fell through them.

Enrico, the old man, was looking back and forth between Callahan and the doorway, unable to figure out what the detective had done to his cohort. At last he lunged for the fallen man's gun, but as he stood up, pointing it over the counter a hand grabbed his arm, immobilizing it, and a Bowie knife pressed against his Adam's apple.

"I don't think you want to do that," Callahan advised him. The old man's eyes were wide with fear. He shook his head minutely, agreeing with the inspector. "I think I might like to borrow that gun, too," Callahan said, sliding the knife back into its sheath and taking the gun from the old man's hand, who let go without resistance.

"How — how did you _do_ that?" Enrico asked, nodding toward the man lying on the floor.

"Let's just say I have a guardian angel," Callahan said, then turned and left the shop, with Harry hard on his heels.

Outside, Callahan checked the gun he'd just acquired as he crossed Brannan Street, heading toward Boardman, the one-way street that led to police headquarters. "Huh," he grunted. "A Colt Cobra, .38 Special. Rare, but I'd rather have a Python or even an old Trooper. Why the hell can't criminals get better guns than this these days?"

Callahan suddenly stopped in the middle of the street. "Hey, kid," he said softly. "Thanks for the head's-up in there. That's two I owe you." He closed the cylinder on the weapon, making sure to put the expended round beneath the hammer. "I guess it's time to face the music," he said with a sigh. "If I don't make it, kid, thanks for your help."

Harry looked up the street where Callahan was staring. This was stupid! He could make sure the detective made it to police headquarters if he — But that wasn't how Aurors were supposed to do things, he reminded himself.

_Do you always do what you're supposed to do_? Another voice asked him, one that reminded him of Hermione, making him grin wryly. If it hadn't been for her and Ron, he never would have made it to that last confrontation with Voldemort. He'd been an Auror for two years now, and those two years had taught him a lot about doing things by the book…

But sometimes, you just had to break the rules.

Harry pointed his wand at Callahan and said "_Confundo_!" Callahan took a step back, reeling, and Harry slipped off his Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it into his pouch, then slid the pouch into his back pocket, which had an Undetectable Extension Charm on it as well, so it could hold things like his wand when he was among Muggles.

Callahan was shaking his head, trying to clear the fog that had come over him. "What's — what's happening…?" he muttered, then jerked as Harry took his arm. "Who're _you_?" Callahan said, muddily, then gasped as he saw Harry's face. "Kid? 'Zat _you_?"

"Yeah, it's me," Harry said. He was concentrating on the steps of the building visible at the other end of Boardman Street, where Callahan had said headquarters was located. A car suddenly turned into the street at the far end, gunning its engine as it raced toward them. At the same time another car was racing up Brannan Street toward them.

Common sense told Harry to simply Apparate away, to reappear at the top of the steps of police HQ, safe and sound with Callahan. But the _other_ part of him, the part that was tired of playing by the rules and pissed off that Callahan couldn't even defend himself without being punished for it, _that_ part wasn't interested in common sense.

It was interested in kicking some ass.

Harry slashed his wand and said "_Defodio_!" gouging out a ditch in the street in front of the second oncoming car. The car tried to swerve but one of its wheels went into the ditch and it tipped over onto its side. The car coming down Boardman skidded to a halt and four young men piled out of it, each of them pointing a gun at Harry and Callahan.

"Yo, homeboy!" the driver of the vehicle shouted. "Callahan's ours now! You better walk or you're goin' down wit' 'im!"

"Not likely," Harry muttered, then erected a Shield between the four men and himself. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two men climbing out of the overturned vehicle — it was the two men who'd forced Callahan to walk to HQ, Ackerman and Ruskowski.

But first things first — he needed to deal with the four guys with the guns. He urged his Shield toward the car; it slammed into the front end, shattering the headlights and grill. All four men jumped in surprise, not sure what had happened. They were staring at one another in confusion and fear.

Harry dropped his shield and said, "_Accio_ guns!" Four weapons were jerked from four hands and came flying toward him. Harry let them pass by, slamming into the knife store's front windows, cracking it in several places. Now deprived of their weapons, three of the men ran back up the street they'd come down, while the driver shouted obscenities at them. Harry dropped him with a Stunner.

Which left only the two cops, who were now approaching warily, their own weapons drawn. "Whoever you are!" one of them shouted. "Drop your — weapon — and get on the ground, _now_! Do it NOW!"

Instead, Harry pointed his wand toward them and both men dropped into firing stance as he said, "_Expelliarmus_!" and their weapons flew from their hands.

Now weaponless and completely unnerved by what had just happened, the two cops looked at each other, then both turned and ran toward where their weapons had fallen. Harry cast Leg Lockers at both men and they fell hard in the street. He walked Callahan, still Confunded, over to the curb and let him sit down, then strode over to where the nearest cop was trying to drag himself toward his gun.

Harry picked up the weapon, a black semiautomatic pistol (he'd studied Muggle weapons in his off-time since joining the Aurors, to better acquaint himself with their capabilities and destructiveness) and pointed it at the cop, who flinched and put up his hands. "Don't shoot, please!" he pleaded. "I got a wife and kids!"

"What's your beef with Callahan?" Harry demanded, still pointing the gun.

When the man only shook his head, still cowering, Harry leaned closer and shouted, "Look at me!" Shaking, the cop looked up into Harry's eyes. "What's your beef with Inspector Callahan," Harry repeated, staring directly into the man's eyes. "_Tell me_!"

But before he could answer, there was a gunshot and a searing pain ripped into Harry's shoulder, knocking him down. The other cop had reached his weapon and fired at him sooner than Harry had anticipated. Harry grabbed his shoulder, dropping the cop's gun, and the man lunged for it and drew a bead on Harry at point-blank range. Harry tried to bring up his wand but it wasn't fast enough —

A Bowie knife slammed down into the cop's forearm, point first, and he dropped the gun, screaming in pain. Callahan had somehow drawn the knife and staggered over to them, even Confunded. He slapped the gun away and yanked the knife from the man's arm, eliciting another scream even as a second shot from the other cop whizzed by them. Callahan heaved the Bowie knife at him, making the cop duck even though it missed him completely. Before he could fire again, Harry pointed his wand and yelled "_Stupefy_!" stunning the man into unconsciousness.

Harry pushed himself so he was sitting upright, grunting at the pain in his right shoulder. He looked at the cop in front of him, whimpering in pain as he held his hand over his bleeding forearm, then at Callahan and said, "Thanks."

Callahan was grinning even though his gaze was unfocused. "I couldn't let you get three up on me, kid." He looked at the other unconscious cop. "Now what?" he asked.

Harry was feeling his shoulder where the bullet struck. It seemed to have passed through without hitting bone, thankfully. He took the wand from his right hand and tapped his shoulder, nonverbally casting a charm to stop the bleeding. "Now," he said, with that accomplished. "We get you to headquarters and hope that nobody there wants you dead."

Callahan nodded. "I still got a few friends at the Hall," he said. "But kid," he added, "I still don't get what's up with you. Are you my guardian angel or what?"

"Or what," Harry said, smiling. "You wouldn't believe the truth if I told you." He stood slowly, trying to keep the pain in his shoulder down to a dull roar. "Come on, let's get you to safety."

"Hang on a sec," Callahan said. He rolled the wounded cop onto his back; the man moaned in pain, but Callahan only said, "Quit complaining, you pussy," as he felt around inside the man's jacket, then pulled out his gun, that massive revolver. "Good," he said, with as much relief as Harry might have had if he'd recovered his wand after losing it. "Okay, kid, let's get the hell out of here," Callahan said, sliding the gun back into the shoulder harness jacket (on the third try).

**=ooo=**

Afterwards, Harry still had enough presence of mind to tidy up after himself. He Obliviated the two cops, Ackerman and Ruskowski, leaving them just enough memory to remember that they'd come up the street looking for Callahan and drove into a ditch that had somehow been in the road ahead of them — everything was pretty blurry after that. He did the same to the driver of the first car. The Muggle cops should be able to piece things together from the evidence at the scene.

The two guys in the knife store were brought into the station, and gave up the bad cops as well, claiming to have been on Callahan's side the whole time, that they'd been approached by Ackerman and Ruskowski, who paid them to stop Callahan if he tried to escape by continuing down Brannan Street.

Harry got the inspector as far as the steps of HQ before removing the Confundus spell; he then disappeared beneath his Invisibility Cloak so he could follow, to make sure he made it inside safely. Callahan did have several friends in the building, and they made sure the entire SFPD knew he was safe and sound at headquarters. Ackerman and Ruskowski, when brought in to HQ confused and disoriented, were promptly placed under arrest and charged with attempted murder and obstruction of justice, along with several misdemeanors for good measure.

Harry also considered Obliviating Callahan as well, in case he became too curious about what had happened with his friend, "the kid," but in the end he decided that the inspector would consider it some kind of supernatural event, a one-time thing never to be repeated. It was either that or risk having to undergo a psych evaluation if he tried to tell police the details as he remembered them through Confundus-induced confusion.

The only thing Harry really regretted about the entire incident was being unable to say a final farewell to Callahan; there were just too many people around him to risk being noticed beneath his Cloak, even as bad as Muggles were most of the time noticing things magical. But he did stay around long enough to make sure Callahan got through filing his final reports and was given his gold watch by Chief Lau himself.

Harry's biggest concern, when all was said and done, was how he was going to make it back to England. It wasn't going to be easy explaining to the United States Department of Magic what he was doing in their country without an international Portkey authorization — it could take days — or weeks! — to sort out the details and get back home, unless his mysterious kidnapper had had enough of this game and was willing to send him home. Somehow, Harry didn't think that was going to happen. That left just the U.S.D.M. to get Harry back home.

The problem with the United States was that it was so _big_. Someone (probably Hermione) had told him that America was forty times the size of the entire United Kingdom! At least he didn't have to try and Apparate his way cross-country to contact the U.S.D.M. headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts — there was a regional office in San Francisco, so he would be able to contact them and explain his predicament. That office, along with the others spread across the United States, were in the official contacts list the Ministry had given him, and that list was safe and sound inside his mokeskin pouch.

Consulting the list, Harry found the regional contact office located in San Francisco's Chinatown. The visitor entrance was near Commercial and Montgomery Street — a public phone booth, similar to the entrance to the Ministry of Magic in London. To be on the safe side, Harry Apparated to that intersection under the Invisibility Cloak, in case the corner was crowded when he arrived.

There wasn't much to see once he got there. There was a bank on one corner, and across from it, to the west, was an ATM. On the south side of the street was a restaurant with an Italian-sounding name. The building on the fourth corner had a For Lease sign on it, and sitting in an alcove near the corner was the phone booth. The booth looked much more modern than its British counterpart — it was aluminum and glass, though the glass was difficult to see through. That was probably on purpose, Harry decided — it wouldn't do if someone noticed a person walk into the booth and disappear!

Waiting until no one was nearby, Harry slipped into the booth, still under the Cloak, then removed it and put it in his pouch. He picked up the receiver and hit 6-2-4-4-2, the number used in all English-speaking countries (M-A-G-I-C).

"Good evening," a pleasant-sounding female voice answered after the first ring. "How may I direct your call?"

"Hello," Harry said. "I'm Harry Potter, I'm an Auror from the British Ministry of Magic and I'm here in America under — er — rather unusual circumstances. I'd like to come in and discuss the situation with your Investigative Bureau. Oh, and I'd like to arrange passage back to England after we get everything sorted out."

"Very good, sir," the female voice said. "We will issue you a visitor pass. Please wear it at all times when inside our facility." A metal plate flipped open at the bottom of the pay phone, revealing a tray and in it a badge with Harry's picture and Harry Potter, Auror Department, Ministry of Magic printed on it. "Please enjoy your visit to the San Francisco office of the Department of Magic."

Harry took the badge and began clipping it to his collar. "Thank you," he said. "Can you tell me who I need to talk —"

An all-too-familiar hook behind the navel sensation suddenly grabbed him and pulled him forward. "Shit! Not aga— " Harry shouted before he was dragged into a whirlwind of colors that quickly went black.

**=ooo=**

Harry was standing upright, stiffly, unable to move. He could tell he'd cursed with a Body-Bind spell. There was dark cloth across his eyes; he could see nothing but a strip of light at the edge of his peripheral vision. The last two times he'd awakened he been in unfamiliar surroundings, but this time, even his surroundings were hidden from him. _What could be coming next_, he wondered.

He stood there for an interminable time, waiting for whatever was going to happen. So far he'd survived two very weird encounters with two very different people; who would his unseen kidnapper put him up against next? Eventually, Harry realized that someone else was in the room, though no one had made a sound. He sensed some kind of presence near him, watching him. How long had this been going on? Harry sighed, then realized that his mouth could move. So this wasn't a Full Body-Bind spell, then.

"Hello?" Harry ventured. His voice was hoarse. "Is anyone there?"

Silence again. "I know you're there," Harry said into the silence. "I can feel you watching me."

There was a chuckle. "Interesting," a male voice said. It had a slight British accent. "You continue to impress me, Harry Potter."

"What's all this about, then?" Harry asked, trying to keep the voice talking, trying to learn more about it. "Why'd you kidnap me? What are you trying to prove?"

"For now that's still my business," the voice replied. "But eventually I'll get around to explaining it to you. If you survive, that is."

That didn't sound promising. "If we cooperate," Harry suggested, "we might be able to figure things out more quickly."

"That's true," the voice said, after a moment. "If you could move your right shoulder, you'd discover that I've healed that gunshot wound. No need to give your next opponent any advantage over you — you'll find him difficult enough to deal with even in the best of shape — I know _I _did, when I first met him."

"Who is —"

"Ah-ah!" the voice interrupted. "Sorry, no hints allowed this time! You'll have to wait and read the letter you'll find after you wake up. For now, just enjoy the rest I'm allowing you to have."

"Wait a minute!" Harry said hurriedly, trying to keep the voice talking. "I need you to…" A sudden lethargy came over him, though, and Harry felt himself fading once again into darkness.


	3. Remo Williams

**Harry Potter Versus**

**Chapter Three  
****Remo Williams**

_Updated May 26, 2012_

Harry opened his eyes. He was seated in a padded, comfortable chair, in an office he could only think of as _unremarkable_. There was a large wooden desk in front of him, polished and shining, but completely bare except for a computer monitor off to one side.

Glancing to either side to check out the rest of the room, Harry saw only shelves filled with books on Muggle medicine and psychology. Was he in a Muggle doctor's office, perhaps? He turned forward once again as the chair behind the desk spun around, revealing a man sitting in it.

An elderly man, Harry noted, with a pinched expression that made him look like he'd just tasted something sour. The man was looking directly into Harry's eyes, and Harry took the opportunity to see if he could pick up any of his surface thoughts, but it was no good — his Legilimency wasn't working at the moment, possibly because he'd just awakened and was unfocused. Not good, because an Auror had to be focused at all times.

The old man's lemony face broke into a wide grin. "Good to see you again, Harry," he said with a chuckle, catching Harry completely off-guard.

"Do I know you, sir?" Harry asked, wondering what had gone on here before he awoke. What did his mysterious captor and this man have in common?

"We haven't met," the man said, leaning back in his chair and putting a pair of highly polished, expensive-looking shoes on the edge of the desk. "At least, not that you recall. My name is Harold W. Smith."

Harry shook his head. That name wasn't familiar to him at all. "What do you want with me?" He asked.

"You're here for your next assignment," Smith said, casually. "You did well with the Hulk and with Harry Callahan — now I want to see how you'll do with a real challenge."

Harry leaned forward. The motion had two purposes — the first was to get a bit closer to this man, who was obviously his captor. The second was to inconspicuously check for his wand; he felt it as he leaned forward — it was still in the hidden pocket in his jeans. That was good — he would be able to draw it in a fraction of a second once he'd determined why this man was forcing him into these situations.

"Why are you doing this?" Harry said, loudly. "What's the point? This can't be a Ministry thing, they wouldn't treat me like this without telling me what was going on."

"You're right," Smith agreed. "Your Ministry of Magic doesn't have anything to do with this. These tests are _my_ doing. I want to see how well you adapt to new and unexpected challenges, not just the typical Dark wizard crawling around Wizarding Britain these days. And by the way, I'm not really Harold W. Smith — I'm just using his form and Polyjuice Potion to meet with you in person."

"Then who are you, _really_?" Harry demanded.

"Sorry," Smith shrugged. "That's still my secret, for now. But eventually I'll show you who I am, assuming you pass all my tests along the way.

"Now, as to your next assignment." Smith did something out of sight behind the desk, and a thin, flat screen slid down from the ceiling and came on, showing a picture of a man. "Here is your target."

The man was brown-haired and thin, wearing a black T-shirt. His eyes were brown and he had high, sharp cheekbones. It was difficult to tell how old he was — he might have been anywhere from 30 to 50 years old based on the picture. "Who is he?" Harry asked.

"His name is Remo Williams," Smith said. "You can't tell from this picture but he's about six feet tall. He works for Harold W. Smith — the real Smith, of course — for an organization named CURE, a secret agency formed almost forty years ago to protect the American Constitution by doing things that normal law enforcement agencies can't do. He's a — well, I suppose 'enforcer' would be one description for him. I'm sending you up against him."

"I'm not going to kill anyone," Harry said, firmly. "No matter what _you_ tell me he's done."

"Relax, Harry," Smith waved off his objection. "I don't need you to kill this guy, just to get some information from him. He's going to be carrying a thumbdrive and I need you to get that from him and back to me."

"I don't know what a 'thumbdrive' is," Harry said.

"Huh," Smith chuckled. "I guess you wouldn't." He fished something out of his pocket and held it up in front of Harry. "It looks something like this," he said. "About the size of a disposable lighter. It's pretty new for Muggle technology — it was only invented last year."

Harry nodded, but he'd noticed that "Smith" had said _Muggle_ technology — a clue that he was a wizard himself. "Is that it?" he said aloud. "That doesn't seem like much of a mission compared to what you've thrown me into before this."

"Well, there are a few flies in the ointment," Smith admitted. "Remo is pretty good at what he does, which is assassinate anyone Smith tells him to. You won't be able to just walk up and take the thumbdrive away from him."

The picture on the screen changed to an image of an Oriental, a wizened elderly man, nearly bald with a wisp of beard on his chin. "This is Remo's trainer, Chiun. He is the Reigning Master of Sinanju, the sun source of all the martial arts."

"Never heard of it," Harry said, skeptically.

"You never thought you were a wizard before your eleventh birthday, did you?" Smith pointed out. "So the fact that you've never heard of Sinanju doesn't mean much, does it?"

"I suppose not," Harry admitted, reluctantly.

"Then listen up. A friendly warning," Smith went on. "This is one guy you do _not_ want to screw around with, Harry. You going up against this guy would be like sending Neville Longbottom up against Albus Dumbledore, if you get my drift."

"Fine," Harry said, in a neutral voice. "So how do I contact you after I get this — this thumbdrive, or whatever it is?"

"I have a card for you," Smith said, then began rummaging around in drawers in the desk. "Just a second, I'll find it in here…"

There was never going to be a better chance while Smith was distracted. Harry stood suddenly, drawing his wand from its hidden pocket. "Don't move!" he told the fake Smith.

Smith looked up from his search. "Oh come _on_, Harry — don't you think I knew where your wand was?"

"Nice try," Harry shook his head. "But you're not bluffing me." The wand he was holding _was_ his wand, right down to the feel of eleven inches of holly in his hand, the nicks and dents that had accumulated over the past nine years. "Now, I want to know what this is all about, the _truth_, or I'm going to Stun you and take you back to the Ministry for further questioning. Now put your hands on the desk where I can see them!"

"And if I don't?" Smith asked, with a smirk.

Harry had had enough of this. "_Stupefy_!" he said, loudly.

The wand in his hand turned into a rubber chicken.

Smith laughed out loud. "I love those Weasley fake wands, heh heh! I knew you couldn't resist trying to get the drop on me, Harry," he wheezed, taking out his own wand. He waved it and the rubber chicken disappeared from Harry's hand. "Nice try, indeed!" He slid a card across the glass-smooth surface of the desk; Harry caught it as it slid off the edge of the desk in front of him.

Harry looked at the card. It read,

_Harold W. Smith, Director_  
_Folcroft Sanitarium_  
_Rye, New York_

"Just tap that card with your wand," Smith said, "and say, 'Energize, Mr. Scott!' and you'll be transported back to this office. And don't worry," he added. "You'll get your real wand back before you go on this assignment — you'll need it!"

"Where are you sending me?" Harry wanted to know. "Where is this Remo — Remo Williams supposed to be, anyway?"

"He's in a hotel in New York City," Smith replied. "The Roosevelt, a pretty upclass place, if I do say so. I'm sending you there — all you have to do is locate him inside the hotel. Get the thumbdrive and get back here; don't mess around with this guy, and sure as Satan _don't_ mess around with his teacher," he added, pointedly, then stood. "Now, it's nap time while I make the final preparations."

Before Harry could so much as open his mouth to protest Smith had pointed his wand at Harry and said "_Somnium_!" Harry felt blackness close about him once more.

=ooo=

His name was Remo and he was in the worst predicament of his life. He was tied to a stout wooden chair, his hands bound by the wrists behind him, his legs tied to the front legs of the chair he was sitting on. Surrounding him were five large men from the Russian Mafia, the largest of which, a burly dock-worker-turned-hired-killer named Yuri Asanov, hovered threateningly over him. He was somewhere inside an abandoned warehouse, a warehouse too big for anyone on the outside to hear the sounds of a man being slowly beaten to death.

If Chiun ever got wind Remo had allowed himself to be tied up like this he'd never hear the end of it.

"I'm going to ask you one last time, American," Yuri said, leaning close to Remo's face, close enough for Remo to see bits of cabbage soup on his teeth and gums. "How did you find out about this place and our operations?"

"It's not like you boys are keeping it a secret," Remo replied, mildly. "You traipse in and out of here all day and night. A blind baboon can tell something's going on in here."

Yuri raised a fist and slammed it into the side of Remo's head. That is, he thought he did this. In reality, Remo waited patiently for the fist to touch his cheekbone, then rolled his head to the side, pushing hard enough against the fist as he did so to let Yuri think he'd connected. "Do you say you are a baboon, then?" Yuri asked, mockingly. "Shall I have my comrades beat you until you talk?"

"You're doing just fine, sweetcheeks," Remo answered, and Yuri growled at being called something he didn't understand but felt was demeaning, especially when a few of the other men laughed. This foolish American, so thin Yuri thought he could pick him up and snap him in two, didn't seem to feel pain, even when Yuri hit him as hard as he could. But that would change soon enough when his comrades went to work with their pipes and baseball bats. _Then_ they would see what kind of pain the American could endure!

"Anyway," Remo went on, ignoring Yuri's anger. "All I'm here for is some doohickey that one of you boys have. It's not very big, about the size of a pocket lighter. You know what I'm talking about?"

Yuri grinned and dug in his pants pocket for a moment. "Like this, you mean?" he asked, producing a thumbdrive.

Remo nodded approvingly. "Yeah, that looks like it. My boss says we need that, it's supposed to be your records on all of the Russian Mafia's activity in this area. If you hand it over now, we can both go our separate ways, no harm, no foul. Otherwise, no more Mr. Nice Guy."

Yuri smiled widely, revealing a mouth with several missing teeth. "And if I refuse to do this? What will you do then, 'Mr. Nice Guy'?"

Remo shrugged. "We'll do it the hard way, then."

"Indeed we will," Yuri said, and launched a hard punch at Remo's head.

It never connected.

Now that Remo knew who had the doohickey, there was no longer a need to keep up the façade of being their prisoner. He had already freed his wrists, severing the ropes binding them, and as Yuri's fist came at him he pushed against the floor with his toes, sending the chair toppling backwards. His feet, still bound to the front two legs, came up, slamming the chair into Yuri's chest, shattering the chair and sending Yuri flailing backwards. He would save Yuri for last, Remo decided.

Remo continued his backward motion, putting the toes of his right foot into the chest of the man behind him, who was holding a length of pipe, shattering his sternum and stopping his heart. That man landed several yards away as the other three men stared, momentarily confused by what was happening. But as Remo landed on his feet then looked at them, smiling brightly, they recovered and rushed him at the same time.

In the chop-sockey films Remo had watched, back when he was a cop in Newark, New Jersey, the bad guys always rushed the hero one at a time, like idiots they were, so the hero could take each of them out with a cool punch or kick. In real life it never worked out that way — the bad guys knew they had to overwhelm you. This didn't matter much to Remo any more, though, because one guy would reach him first, and he'd take that guy out, then the next, and so on until there were no more guys left to deal with.

But he was dealing with a disadvantage; namely, the wooden legs still tied to his calves, which meant he couldn't move as effectively as normal. So, Remo decided, he would take care of these guys using only his hands.

The first guy to reach Remo was a Lithuanian roughly twice his size — he was swinging a bat wildly, a blow that Remo let slip past his head as he rolled his fingertips across the Lithuanian's hip, paralyzing his legs. But not before the Lithuanian's bat smashed into the second guy's nose, driving the cartilage into his brain even as he aimed a kick at Remo's groin. The foot never reached Remo, however, as the blow from the Lithuanian threw the second guy backwards, dead before he hit the ground, his nose now occupying the space formerly reserved for his frontal lobes.

The third attacker was next to the second, and the metal pipe in his hand was coming toward Remo from the side opposite the Lithuanian, whose arm was still extended after the blow to the second man's nose. All Remo had to do was take Lithie's arm and push it out of the third man's way, and at the same time move his head back slightly, letting the pipe smack Lithie in the forehead, dislocating bones in the third man's hand and wrist from the impact, and cracking open Lithie's forehead. Lithie dropped to the ground bleeding into his brain. He would die within seconds.

The last man was holding his dislocated hand and screaming. Remo put his fingertips into the man's throat, shattering his windpipe and driving it to the back of his neck. The man dropped to the floor as well, allowing Remo to finally snap the ropes binding him to the chair legs. Remo then sauntered over to where Yuri lay and put a hand on his shoulder, waking him.

Yuri opened his eyes then opened his mouth to scream, wondering why the pain he was feeling wasn't killing him. But strangely, nothing would come out of his mouth, not even a moan. The thin American's hand was on his shoulder, seemingly holding it gently, but the sensation was one of hot needles being driven through his limbs and torso.

Remo's hand relaxed pressure and Yuri was able to whisper, "Please…stop…" as Remo reached into his pants pocket and took out the thumbdrive.

"Thanks," Remo said, slipping the drive into his chinos. "If there was going to be a next time, I'd advise you to take the easier way. But —" he shrugged expansively. "That's the biz, sweetheart." Remo delivered a final blow to Yuri, ending him for good, then stood and walked out of the warehouse, his mission accomplished.

A short while later Remo was back at the hotel where he and his teacher, Chiun, were staying. Remo whistled tunelessly as he took the elevator up to his floor, but stopped as he exited the elevator, in case Chiun's soap operas were on. When he entered the room, Chiun was sitting in lotus position in front of the coffee table, his scrolls spread across it.

"Hello, Little Father," Remo said. "I thought your soaps would be on about now."

"They are indeed," Chiun answered, not diverting his attention from the scroll he was rapidly writing on, the complicated Korean text appearing as fast as a normal man could draw a straight line. "But if your faulty white memory could but recall events from only a few days ago, you would understand why I am not watching them now."

"Oh, yeah," Remo recalled buying a digital video recorder, a new device like a video cassette recorder except that it didn't use the cassettes — instead it recorded the program "digitally." Smitty had explained it to him, sounding very unhappy about the expense, but Remo told him it would probably keep Chiun from killing anyone who disturbed him while the shows were on, if he could just watch them over and over whenever he wanted to.

Which was of course a lie. Chiun never had to watch something more than once before he could recall it in painstaking detail.

"Did Smitty call?"

Chiun was reviewing his writings. "The annoying telephone device did trouble me for a few moments as I chronicled the exploits of the Reigning Master of Sinanju. It will not do so again."

"Great," Remo snorted, who knew that mean the phone was now in pieces. Which mean that the special secure connection set up for the phone in this room was useless. And that meant that he was going to have to find a pay phone somewhere to contact Smitty. And _that_ meant he was going to have to go through a boring routine of code phrases and responses. "Thanks a bunch, Chiun," he sighed. "Be right back," and Remo went to find a phone.

Fortunately, however, there was a phone booth in the lobby of their hotel. After an interminable number of "Remo Pelham, person-to-person with Mr. Folcroft," and "Mr. Green for Mr. Blue," and so on, during which Remo etched a happy face in the side of the phone with his fingernail, he finally reached Harold W. Smith, head of CURE and his boss for Christ-knew-how-many-years-now.

"You could have called on the room phone," was the first thing Smith said to him when he answered. "It was set up specifically so you wouldn't have to call from a public phone."

"Hell hath no fury like Chiun when he's writing," Remo replied, dryly. "Anyway, I've got the doohickey."

"Good," Smith said. "Before you bring it in, though, I need you to check something out."

"What now," Remo said, not really interested.

"We have some satellite intelligence from New Mexico that shows Dr. Bruce Banner in his alternate form, in combat with a male human."

"Yeah? So?" Remo had heard about Banner and about his "alternate form," a huge green-skinned, heavily muscled humanoid the government had termed "the Hulk," but he'd never crossed paths with either of them.

"The human he fought seemed capable of generating reality-altering energies. He —"

"In English, Smitty," Remo drawled. Smith did love to come up with these geekily-worded explanations, but like Chiun had told him, the harder one tries, the less one understands.

There was silence from the other end of the line for several moments. Then, in a more clipped tone, "The young human carried what appeared to be a short, wooden stick. He was able to create a transparent, hollow sphere out of thin air, large enough to contain the Hulk persona, which eventually cut off its oxygen supply and it became unconscious. The Hulkbuster Team arrived and took the Hulk into custody, but they could find no trace of the human. It was as if he'd vanished into thin air."

"Huh," Remo muttered. "Sounds like magic."

"Yes, exactly," Smith agreed. "There are also reports that this same human appeared a day later in San Francisco, and was present at an assassination attempt on Inspector Harry Callahan, a veteran of the San Francisco Police Department who was retiring that day after 40 years of service."

Remo grunted. His own police career had been cut short when he was falsely convicted of killing a drug dealer in Newark and sent to the electric chair. He'd heard about Callahan, too — the man managed to kill something like fifty bad guys and was never brought up on charges. Well, sometimes justice worked in weird ways. "So is there a point to all of this, Smitty?"

"We want you to make contact with this person," Smith replied. "We're sending you to San Francisco to see if you can pick up his trail. Do you think Chiun will be able to stay at the hotel while you're gone?"

"As long as the hotel doesn't run out of fresh fish, rice, or soap operas," Remo told him. "And as long as nobody disturbs him while they're on. Or while he's writing. Oh, that reminds me. That DVR-thingie I bought him is working out pretty well, he's recording the shows to watch later instead of everything around him stopping while they're on. And it's a lot handier than using a VCR."

"Wonderful," Smith said, sourly. That device had not been cheap. While Smith had spent literally millions of dollars on the computer systems at Folcroft Institute, computers that gathered information from around the world, he was otherwise incredibly cheap. He wouldn't have authorized the few hundred dollars expense for the DVR until Remo pointed out it would probably cut down on deaths caused by people bothering Chiun during his soap operas. Chiun _really_ did not like anyone interrupting his "special time."

"You got a description for this guy?" Remo asked, casually scanning the hotel lobby.

"Not very tall, black hair, round glasses," Smith droned descriptively. "Last seen wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers. When can you be ready for the flight to San Francisco?"

"I'm ready now," Remo answered, still looking out of the phone booth. "But I don't think I need to go."

"Why not?" Smith asked, sharply.

"Because a kid matching your description is in the lobby of this hotel right now," Remo said. "What do you want me to ask him?"

"Bring him to Folcroft for questioning," Smith answered immediately. "We need to know if he's really capable of doing magic or if what we saw was some kind of staged illusion. What is he doing now?"

"He's talking to the hotel clerk," Remo said, watching the young man. "Probably trying to locate someone in the hotel. Hmm." As Remo watched, the kid slid a wooden stick out of his pocket and waved it at the clerk, who'd turned away for a moment. The clerk suddenly began acting erratically — shaking his head, turning first one direction then the other, as if he couldn't make up his mind. The kid was still talking to him, Remo could see, and the clerk pointed to one of the pigeonholes behind him, where the room keys were kept.

He'd pointed to the pigeonhole for Remo and Chiun's room.

Curiouser and curiouser, Remo thought. "I'll get back to you, Smitty," Remo said, and hung up before Smith could protest. The kid was leaving the hotel desk and heading toward the elevators. Remo watched as he pushed the call button then stood looking at the elevator lights, waiting for one to arrive.

It would serve him right, Remo thought, if he let this kid go up to their room (if that's where he was headed, Remo reminded himself) and disturb Chiun. However, that wasn't what Smitty wanted — he wanted this kid alive, and so that was how Remo was going to deliver him.

=ooo=

Harry had found himself standing outside the entrance of this hotel a few minutes ago. He was on a busy street, bustling with people walking in either direction and cars driving past. As he watched a black, expensive-looking car pulled up to the curb and an elegantly-dressed man and woman got out, helped by one of the men in front of the building who welcomed them to "The Roosevelt." Presumably that was this building, Harry decided, and figured he should go in and find out if this Remo Williams was here, like the fake Smith had said.

The simplest way to do this was to talk to the hotel clerk. Harry walked up to the front desk, where a lone clerk looking through a sheaf of papers seemed to deliberately ignore him for almost a minute before Harry said, "Excuse me."

The clerk glanced up at Harry. He was a young man, not much older than Harry. He gave Harry an appraising look and, finding him lacking, asked in a condescending voice, "May I help you, sir?" managing to make the last word an epithet. "A room for you today, perhaps?"

"I just need some information," Harry said. He pulled the picture of Remo his captor had given him before dumping him here, holding it up for the clerk to see. "This man is staying at this hotel. I need to contact him. Do you have his room number?"

"I'm sorry, sir," the clerk said, his tone making it clear he was _not_ sorry, not at all. "We do not give out information on people staying in our hotel."

"So he _is_ here, then?" Harry persisted.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that, sir," the clerk said, his mouth twisting into a vicious grin. "Now, unless you have actual business here, _sir_, I will ask you to leave the hotel or I shall be forced to call security." The clerk turned away, ignoring Harry.

Harry shook his head slightly then took out his wand and cast _Confundus_ on the clerk, who suddenly looked quite confused and unclear about what was going on. He looked at Harry and said, "Have you been helped, sir?"

"I was looking for this man's room number," Harry said, still holding up the photo. "He told me it would be okay to come up when I got here."

"Oh — um," the clerk studied the bank of pigeonholes behind them, finally pointing to the one numbered 512. "He's in room 251 — er, I mean 521 — no, it's…512…I think."

"Thank you," Harry said, then turned and went straight to the bank of elevators; he left the Confundus on the clerk in a moment of pique. There were a total of four elevators, two on either side of the alcove they were in, and Harry watched to see which elevator would arrive first.

He was going to assume that this Remo Williams was in room 512; if not, he would begin poking around the other rooms. It would not be difficult to find a room with human occupants, then use revealment charms to see their faces from outside in the hallway. After that, he could use his Invisibility Cloak and _Alohomora_ to slip into the room unobserved and figure where the "thumbdrive" thing the fake Smith wanted was located.

An elevator arrived and a man and woman, both expensively attired, stepped out. Looking at them, Harry could see why his appearance had not impressed the clerk — he must have looked more like a homeless person than a potential customer for the hotel. He stepped into the elevator and hit the button for floor five.

The doors began to close but a voice called out, "Going up?" and Harry automatically hit the Open button on the control panel. A man stepped inside with a muttered thanks, and the doors closed.

Though Harry had tried to catch a glimpse of the man's face as he stepped in, the man turned away from him and stepped toward he rear of the elevator, behind Harry's field of view. Being polite, Harry did not turn to stare at the other passenger.

As the elevator started upward, the man remarked, "Interesting weather we're having, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Harry said, "I just got into town a while ago." He turned to smile at the passenger, and froze. A thin man with dark hair and brown eyes, high cheekbones and thick wrists was smiling back at him.

"How's it going, sweatheart?" Remo asked. Harry automatically went for his wand, but Remo stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder, and Harry's hand went nerveless, dropping his wand. "Oops," Remo said, retrieving it and looking at it curiously. "Naughty, naughty — didn't your mother ever warn you not to attack people with pointy sticks?"

"My mum died when I was a year old," Harry managed to gasp, still unable to move with the man's hand on his shoulder. "So did my dad."

"Really?" Remo had been an orphan as well, but he didn't remember spending any time as a child with his parents. "That's too bad, kid."

"They were killed by — by a bad man," Harry said. He had no idea why he was telling this person such intimate details about his life.

"Tough break," Remo said, and he meant it. He had met his father, Bill Roam, but he still didn't know a lot about him. But this kid would never have the chance to meet his parents, not if they were dead.

The elevator stopped at the fifth floor and Remo stepped out, pulling Harry with him, who had no choice as his legs seemed to move of their own accord. Remo looked right, then left, trying to remember where his room was, then stuck the wand in Harry's back pocket, telling him, "Don't go waving that thing around — it could be bad for your health." Especially if he tried waving it at Chiun. He would have to tell Chiun Smitty wanted this kid alive.

"It's just a —" Harry began, but Remo shook his head knowingly.

"You're busted, kid," he told Harry. "You're going upstate to talk to my boss. He's got some questions about that that stick you're carrying." They arrived at room 521. "And remember what I said about waving it around — try something stupid with it and I'll keep it next time. And that's _nothing_ compared to what my teacher will do if you point it at him."

Harry nodded docilely. As long as he had his wand he could Apparate away if things got too dangerous in the room. Remo unlocked the door, pushed it open, then pushed Harry inside in front of him. "Chiun, I'm back! And we've got company!"

Harry was looking around the hotel room he'd been forced into. It was quite plush, richly furnished and carpeted, and he wondered what this Remo and his "teacher" did, other than kill people, that warranted such accommodations. Seated on the floor behind a coffee table filled with parchment scrolls was a small, elderly Oriental man, nearly bald, with a scraggly beard on his chin. This was Chiun, Harry knew. "There is no need to shout, Remo," the old Oriental said. "I am not deaf, though your unpleasant braying sometimes makes me wish for deafness."

"Sometimes?" Remo said, dryly.

"I was being charitable, seeing as we have company," Chiun proffered.

Remo gave Harry a long-suffering look. "That's Chiun," he said. "He's Korean, by the way, not Chinese, so don't go calling him a chink or anything like that."

"I wouldn't —" Harry started to say, but the old man cut him off.

"You do not need to tell visitors that I am Korean, Remo," Chiun said in a mildly reproving tone. "It should be obvious to any intelligent person."

"Yes, well, you get a bit upset when someone thinks you're Chinese," Remo pointed out. "Remember that bellhop in Weehawken?"

"Why should I remember someone who insults Sinanju and all its inhabitants with their ignorance?" Chiun sniffed. "I do remember my remarkable restraint at his unforgivable insults."

"Yeah," Remo said, dryly. "You were kind enough to leave him one unbroken finger so he could call for an ambulance."

"Quite so," Chiun nodded. He looked at Harry, who had maintained a careful silence until now. "And who is our new visitor, if I may inquire?"

"This is —" Remo stopped. "Say, what _is_ your name, kid?"

"It's Harry Potter," Harry said. "What are you going to do with me?"

"_I'm_ not going to anything to you except deliver you to my boss," Remo shrugged, indifferent. "He'll likely have some questions about that stick you're carrying around —"

Chiun looked up sharply. "He is carrying a _stick_? Remo, take it from him, _now_!"

Several things happened at once.

Harry turned on his heel, Disapparating. Remo reached out, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder again, to immobilize him. Chiun rose from behind the coffee table in one fluid motion, as if he were levitating, and moved toward Harry and Remo. Harry disappeared with a sharp _crack_.

A strange word came from Remo's throat. "Aaack," he said, weakly, staring at the stump where his forearm used to be. He had dislocated his shoulder once, when executing a blow at someone who fainted at the same moment, but the pain was nothing compared to his arm being torn away. At that same moment Chiun caught him and lowered him to the floor.

"Who was that kid?" Remo gasped, looking from Chiun to his missing forearm, feeling his senses begin to blur. How many arms had he torn from evildoers over the years? He never expected it to happen to _him_.

"We call them the Stick Wigglers," Chiun said, moving his hands over Remo's body to prevent him from succumbing to shock. "Sinanju has had dealings with them in the past. Do not speak," he warned, when Remo opened his mouth again. "Lie here and do not die, Remo. I must go to recover your arm."

Remo laughed weakly. "What are you going to do, Little Father? Sew it back onto me? You never taught me a blow to reverse a limb removal."

"I will force that young man to restore it," Chiun said, firmly. "Or else he and everyone he holds dear shall face the wrath of the Reigning Master of Sinanju! None of them shall escape me, Remo, this I promise you —"

There was a knock on the door. Chiun looked up, frowning. "Pfah! I do not have time for this," he said.

"What is it?" Remo mumbled, looking at the door.

"There are several men outside our door, with guns," Chiun answered. "They —" There was another loud _crack_ right next to him.

=ooo=

Harry reappeared in a corner of the lobby, relieved that he'd gotten away. Whatever the fake Smith wanted from him with this "assignment," those two were clearly too dangerous to deal with alone. He would have to figure out some other way —

There was a thud on the ground next to him. Harry looked down, then recoiled when he saw that it was part of Remo's arm. He'd Splinched himself trying to grab Harry as Harry Apparated.

Harry stared down at the arm for several seconds. He couldn't just leave the man maimed, but Chiun had seemed to recognize him as a wizard, and had ordered Remo to take his wand. If he went back, he would risk becoming their prisoner. For an Auror, that was unacceptable. But on the other hand… Harry winced at his unintentional black humor.

He shook his head slightly, deciding, then steeled himself, picked up Remo's arm, and Disapparated once again.

=ooo=

Dimitri Anasov and his men moved quickly and quietly along the fifth floor corridor of the Roosevelt. Soon, he would have his revenge upon the thin man, the man who had murdered his brother Yuri, and his crew.

A street rat trying to curry favor with Dimitri's gang had followed the thin man from the warehouse where they'd been holding him, waiting for Dimitri to arrive and the real questioning to begin, to this hotel. In return for keeping his kneecaps he had passed this information along to Dimitri, who had selected a half-dozen of his toughest men and arrived here in short order. The clerk at the desk had seemed — not right, somehow, but he responded appropriately when Dimitri offered to let him keep his fingers in return for the room number of the thin man.

They took the elevator up to the fifth floor, then moved slowly along the corridor, readying their weapons. Dimitri approached the door, pointing to his men to position them for when the thin man answered the door. He knocked on the door.

On the other side, an Oriental voice spat, "Pfah! I do not have time for this!" Dimitri looked at his men, confused for a moment. What was going on here?

There was a muffled _crack_ from inside the room, which confused Dimitri even more. After a few seconds, however, Dimitri decided it didn't matter whether he was confused or not. "Shoot the door," he ordered his men.

=ooo=

"There are several men outside our door, with guns," Chiun answered. "They —" There was a loud _crack_ next to him as Harry appeared holding Remo's arm.

Chiun stood to his full height, bringing the top of his head to Harry's eye level. "Heal him," he said commandingly. "I shall deal with the men outside our door."

"What men —" Harry began, but flinched as Chiun seemed to disappear and the door to the room exploded outwards. There were gunshots, loud screams and the wet sound of flesh tearing and exploding. Remembering what he'd returned for, Harry knelt down next to Remo, positioning his forearm next to the point of the Splinch. He took out his wand and aimed carefully; this was the first time he'd actually done this to a Splinched limb without Ministry supervision. "_Contineus brachium_!" he said, and Remo's forearm was rejoined with his arm. Remo reached over with his other arm and rubbed the place where his arm had been Splinched, then looked up at Harry.

"Thanks," he said, and Harry nodded. Remo stood slowly, flexing the fingers on his reattached hand, and walked to the shattered door to see what Chiun had been doing. Harry followed him, flinching again when he saw what had happened.

The hallway looked like a nundu has passed through it. Bodies and blood littered the floor, walls, and even the ceiling. One body had a shotgun sticking halfway out of its mouth. Another one was folded in half, _backwards_. There was an arm sticking out of a wall; the hand was still holding a pistol. If the small Oriental man had done _that_… Harry could see why the fake Smith had warned him not to mess with Chiun.

"Impressive," was all Remo said.

"Of course." Chiun looked almost affronted. "Am I not the Reigning Master of Sinanju? Were these men not about to attack me?"

"They were actually going to attack _me_," Remo replied. He pointed at the body of Dimitri Asanov, who appeared to be the least-damaged of the bunch, with only an automatic pistol sticking out of his chest. "This guy looks a lot like the leader of the group I was dealing with earlier today. They had me —" Remo stopped, realizing he didn't want to reveal too much, then said, "they were asking me some questions I didn't feel like answering."

"Whatever," Chiun waved off further explanation, uninterested. "Just get rid of them, please, and have the innkeeper clean up the mess."

"I'm afraid we can't do that, Chiun," Remo pointed out, apologetically. "We have to get out of here. And quickly. Good thing our work here is done." He turned to Harry. "And we still have to get you to my boss."

"No." Chiun shook his head. "You will not turn this boy over to Emperor Smith."

_Boy_? Harry thought. _And who was this Emperor Smith_?

"But —"

"Sinanju owes Harry Potter a debt of gratitude for the return of your arm."

"But he's the one who took it off!" Remo protested.

"It was an accident, I'm sure," Chiun said quietly, his eyes on Harry, and Harry quickly nodded agreement. Anything to avoid having to deal with the real Harold W. Smith, who was likely the boss Remo was talking about. "Sinanju does not punish people for accidents, unless we are paid to do so."

For a moment Remo's expression was as sour as anything Smitty could muster, but he finally nodded acceptance. "Smitty won't be happy, but he mostly never is anyway, so no big deal. Are your trunks packed, Little Father?"

"I have barely had time to breathe properly, much less unpack my things," Chiun carped. "Only three trunks have been emptied."

Remo sighed. "Better go get them ready, then. I need a word with our new friend here before I come in to help you." Chiun turned without a word and walked back into the room.

Remo turned to Harry. "So what were you looking for us for, anyway?"

"Um —" Harry didn't want to say, really; he was satisfied with being let go without having to fight either of these men. But just being around Remo seemed to inspire Harry to be truthful. "The person who sent me wanted something you had, something he called a 'thumbdrive.'"

Remo reached into his pocket and pulled out the device he'd taken from Yuri Asanov. "This? This is just information about the Russian Mafia's operations in New York. Smitty's just going analyze the bejesus out of it and probably have me take out a few key crime figures to cripple their operations here. What would _you_ need it for?"

"I don't know," Harry shook his head. "The man who's making me do this is using the name Harold W. Smith but he's not really that person. He told me so."

"Impersonating Smitty, eh?" Remo mused. "Well, there's no accounting for anybody's sanity, is there? Is he like you? I mean, can he use a wand like you?"

"He's a wizard, too," Harry nodded. "But I don't know who he really is."

"Do you think he'd know if you gave him a fake copy of this thing?" Remo asked, holding up the thumbdrive.

Harry smiled. "That's a good question. If there's nothing magical about it, I don't think he could tell the difference between it and the original without performing a lot of — er, tests on it."

"Can you magic up a copy of this thing, then?" Remo held out the thumbdrive.

Harry took it. The Duplication Charm would exactly reproduce the form of the object he cast it on. It wouldn't duplicate the magic, and he couldn't duplicate precious metals, but if there weren't any in this item it would be exactly the same as the original. He held the thumbdrive in his hand, pointed his wand at it and said, "_Gemimio_!"

A duplicate of the thumbdrive appeared in his hand next to the original. Harry put away his wand, then took the original and held it up, side by side, with his created copy. "Do they look the same?" he asked Remo.

"I can't tell which one's the original," Remo agreed. Harry started to hand him one but Remo shook his head. "Nice try, kid, but I saw you try to palm the duplicate. I want the original."

Harry smiled wryly. "Sorry," he said, then held out his other hand and opened it. Remo took the thumbdrive, stuck it back in his pocket, then stuck out a thick-wristed hand at Harry, who shook it.

"Good luck, kid," Remo said. "And — sorry about your parents. I'm an orphan, too, so I know how you feel. How'd you lose them, anyway?"

That odd sense of truthfulness kicked in again. "They, they were killed by a Dark wizard named Voldemort."

Chiun's head suddenly appeared in the doorway of the room. "Remo? Are you going to help me pack or must you stand here yammering about Sinanju's work?"

Remo looked around, confused. "We weren't talking about Sinanju, Little Father."

"You mentioned Voldemort, did you not? A rather mad British Stick Wiggler who wanted to subjugate the British Isles under his rule of 'blood purity' — a foolish white conceit, of course, as Koreans are the only pure race. I accepted the contract on him while you were off on one of your pointless missions."

"What?" Harry said, frowning. "No, _I_ killed Voldemort!"

"I beg to differ," Chiun said, firmly. "The contract was arranged through the British Prime Minister, who knew of Sinanju and wanted to avoid further interference from Voldemort and his followers, who were causing trouble outside the Stick Wiggler community in Britain. The man who paid me was named Snoop, or Sneep, something like that. Perhaps Snape — I would have to check my glorious _History of Sinanju_ to be sure. A most unpleasant fellow, whoever he was, but his gold was as good as anyone else's. I found Voldemort hiding in a Stick Wiggler's mansion in western England. He was no trouble."

"But — but, you _couldn't_ have killed him!" Harry protested. "He was — he was…" _How_ was he going to explain Horcruxes to this man?

But Chiun seemed to already know. "He was magically protected from death, you were about to say," he told Harry. Chiun turned to Remo. "Tell me, my son, when you strike a man is he dead?"

"No," Remo smiled knowingly, because he'd been caught on this question before. "It means _he is going to die_."

"Correct," Chiun nodded. "It is good to see that even a pale piece of pig's ear can learn from his mistakes."

"Oh, blow it out your ears," Remo snapped. "You know how much I've learned from you over the years!"

"Apparently," Chiun admitted. "In any event, once the protections were removed this Voldemort became vulnerable to my blow from months earlier and fell over, dead, of failed kidneys."

"But —" Harry was shaking his head in disbelief. "That's not how it happened! I was there, he and I exchanged spells and his rebounded from mine because I was the true master of his wand, not him, and —!"

"Kid," Remo said gently. "If Chiun tells you he killed this Voldemort of yours, you can take that money to the bank."

"Or in this case, that gold to the village of Sinanju," Chiun noted. "Come, Remo, we must prepare to leave before I further beset by imbecilic white people prying into our private affairs." He disappeared into the room.

"Good luck, kid," Remo said again. "Keep it real." He turned and followed Chiun into the room, leaving Harry alone in the hallway with seven corpses.

"Okay," Harry said, then took out the card with the name Harold W. Smith on it. He looked at the thumbdrive in his hand — the _original_ thumbdrive, he reminded himself. After he'd palmed the duplicate one, he managed to magically switch them while his hands were closed. It seemed like that was the only thing he'd done during this assignment that had worked. Harry tapped the card with his wand, muttering "Energize, Mr. Scott," and disappeared in a sparkly column of whirling lights.

=ooo=

Harold W. Smith (the real one) smiled approving as the thumbdrive Remo had acquired from the Russians was delivered to him. He plugged it into the USB port, then ran the specially modified version of Explorer.

Nothing happened. Several tries later he was still unable to see anything on the device, not even that it existed.

"Remo," Smith muttered under his breath. "What did you _do_ to this thing?"

=ooo=

**A/N: I was a big fan of _The Destroyer_ series back in the 70's and 80's, it's too bad fanfiction dot net only has one story about Remo, and that a crossover with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I hope this chapter better captures the look and feel of the Sapir/Murphy books, even though Remo doesn't come out on top, as is customary in those tales. Maybe someday a Remo and Harry crossover story…?**


	4. Duncan MacLeod

Harry Potter Versus

**Chapter Four**

**Duncan McLeod**

_Updated June 9, 2012_

=ooo=

Harry blinked as the last of the Portkey sparkles faded from his vision. That had been a strange Portkey — not the usual whirlwind of color and sound that pulled you in like a hook behind your navel, but a whirl of sparkles in which he faded out, like an Apparition in slow motion, but without the darkness and constriction of that form of magical transport.

He looked around, not recognizing his surroundings. At least he wasn't still in that hallway filled with dismembered bodies, Harry thought with some relief. Which reminded him — he opened his hand, revealing the thumbdrive he'd tricked Remo out of, the _real_ one. Now if the fake Harold W. Smith would just show up and take it, perhaps these missions would end.

He was outside somewhere, Harry saw, as he looked around again. He was not near any city, as he saw only hills and trees on all sides of him. Why would the fake Smith have brought him _here_, Harry wondered. He automatically cast the Location Charm, hoping to find out where he was, but like the last time he'd tried there was no response at all. He was still a long way from the Ministry of Magic in London.

A faint sound touched his ears, and Harry concentrated, trying to make it out, hoping to find someone who could tell him where he was. It was the sound of metal striking metal, and it seemed to be coming from the other side of a nearby hill. Harry turned on the spot, to Apparate to the top of the hill and get a better look, but he didn't move. He had his wand, so that left only… Harry cast a detection spell, finding an Anti-Disapparition Jinx where he was standing. The fake Smith evidently didn't want him Apparating away. Harry trudged up the hill in the direction of the metal sounds, reaching the top and looking down from his vantage point at the source of the sounds.

Two men were fighting. With swords. Actual, honest-to-Merlin swords!

Harry almost charged down the hill to try and break up the fight, but realized that he didn't know anything at all about the situation; he might unknowingly help whoever was in the wrong — and that was if _either_ man below was in the wrong. It was possible they were just sparring. Harry decided to remain atop the hill and watch as the situation unfolded.

Both men seemed quite expert in their sword fighting; neither man was getting past the other's guard; the swords moved faster than Harry could follow. The two men moved back and forth, first one pressing an attack then the other. It almost seemed like the fight would never end when suddenly a sword flashed inside one man's guard, wounding him, and another flick of the attacker's sword disarmed him. The wounded man fell to his knees, and Harry could see him looking up at the victor, saying something too faint for Harry to hear. The other man suddenly raised his sword and swung it downward, and the wounded man's head fell away.

Harry jolted, shocked by the man's sudden death. What happened next shocked him even more. The winner stood with his arms spread wide, waiting for — something, but what, Harry couldn't fathom. Then, inexplicably, the body on the ground began to _glow_ as some kind of mist or aura surrounded it. Harry watched, transfixed, as bolts of lightning began to strike the winner. Harry looked upward but the sky was clear and blue. Where was the lightning coming from? The bolts struck nearby trees, exploding them or setting them ablaze, and they struck the man standing over the body as well, but though they staggered him, he remained upright, gasping as the bolts hit him. They increased in frequency and intensity, and as they did the body on the ground slowly lost its glow, until the man left standing slumped as the last bolt died away. He dropped slowly to his knees, exhausted by what had just happened.

Harry began walking down the hill toward the man, his wand still in his hand. It was time to find out where he was and what was going on here. When he was twenty yards away the man looked up, saw him, and sprang to his feet, his sword pointing toward Harry. "Stop!" the man commanded.

Harry slowed down but didn't stop. "I mean you no harm," he said, cautiously. "I have no fight with you. In fact, I need your help. I don't know where I am."

The sword pointing at Harry didn't waver, despite the man's seeming exhaustion. "You don't know? You're outside of Paris, France."

_That was strange_, Harry thought. If he was that close to London he should have felt _something_ when he cast the Location Charm. He nodded toward the headless body between them. "What's all this about?"

The man's expression became closed, hard to read. "It's — complicated," he said, evasively.

"Nothing very complicated about two men trying to kill one another with swords," Harry replied matter-of-factly. "I'm sure there's probably a very simple explanation for it."

"Oh, it's far from simple," the man said. "And it's none of your concern." He and Harry stared at each other for long seconds. The man facing him was handsome, Harry saw, and looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, though he carried himself like someone much older. The sword in his hand was a Japanese _katana_ with an ornately carved handle. The weapon lying on the ground next to the body was a bastard sword, usable one- or two-handed, and it probably had a longer reach than the katana.

"What am I supposed to think, then — that you cut this man down in cold blood?" Harry asked. "That you murdered him?"

"He challenged _me_!" the man said, hotly. "I do not murder in cold blood!"

"Then explain it to me!" Harry demanded. "I can't just pretend this didn't happen!"

"You should," the man declared. "Just walk away. Forget you saw anything. I can't tell you any more than that." The man turned and began to walk away.

Harry pointed his wand. "_Petrificus Totalus_!" he cried. The man's arms and legs snapped together and he froze in place, the Body-Bind Curse stopping him in his tracks. Harry walked over to stand in front of the man. "Would you like me to explain _this_?" he asked the man in an even tone. The man's eyes seemed full of surprise and wonder, and he watched Harry closely.

"My name is Harry Potter," Harry told his captive audience. "I'm a wizard. I can perform magic, as you may have figured out by now. What I saw after you killed the man looked like magic as well. Now if I'm a wizard, I can't imagine that whatever you tell me is going to be much stranger than that." He took a few steps away from the man and canceled the Body-Bind Curse.

The man jerked as he realized he was free, then took a step toward Harry before halting. He stared intently at Harry for several moments before seeming to relax. Harry managed to relax a bit as well — he'd been prepared to hit the man with a Stunner if he'd kept coming forward.

"Alright," the man said. "I will tell you what's going on. If you're a sorcerer, you may know about us already. If not, though, you may find this hard to believe."

"As hard to believe as me freezing you in place with a couple of words?" Harry asked, his eyebrows raised. "I guess we'll find out."

The man said nothing for some time. Harry waited him out — he knew how hard it had been to make the leap of faith and tell the man of his own secret.

"I'm Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod," the man said at last. "I'm an Immortal. I was born in the year 1592 in the Highlands of Scotland. Is that strange enough for you?"

"That's pretty strange," Harry admitted. He had never heard of immortal beings coming from Scotland. He pointed to the headless body nearby. "And what's _his_ story?"

MacLeod pointed at the body with his katana. "Gregor Powers. He's an Immortal, too. Or was."

"If you can be killed, why do you call yourself an immortal?" Harry asked, intrigued.

"That's what we call ourselves," MacLeod replied. "We all died sometime in the past. From that time on, we do not age. I died a few months before my 30th birthday. This is how I've looked for the past 400 years. Now, Harry Potter, tell me how you came upon my battle with Powers."

"I wish I could tell you," Harry shrugged. "But —"

"_Now_ who's being secretive," the man said, his voice hard.

"I _mean_," Harry went on quickly, "I don't know the reason why I'm here. I was abducted a couple of days ago — I'm not even sure of how many it's been — and forced to interact with other people on some series of 'missions' to free myself. I don't know anything more than that!"

MacLeod didn't seem convinced. "And where is this 'abductor' of yours now?" He looked around. "I see no one here but you and me."

"He hasn't shown himself this time," Harry replied. "Normally I find a letter from him, or he tells me in person what I'm supposed to do next."

"Why don't you try to escape, if you're being forced against your will?" MacLeod asked.

"I've been trying to!" Harry replied, earnestly. "He's always a step ahead of me!" It _was_ frustrating, Harry admitted to himself, but this was the first time since this whole ordeal had started that he hadn't found himself forced to contend with a situation before trying to get away. Well, beyond trying to understand why these men had tried to kill one another, he amended himself. He concentrated for a moment, casting a detection spell nonverbally, and found the Anti-Disapparition Jinx still in effect around him. "If I could," he told MacLeod, "I'd just magic myself away from here and go home."

MacLeod looked lost in thought for a moment, then looked up at Harry again. "I have a place in Paris you can stay," he offered. "Maybe we can find a way to get you back home without your 'abductor' stopping you this time."

"That would be brilliant," Harry said, grateful for some help for a change. "Thank you."

"My car is just over that hill," MacLeod said, turning to walk away.

"Wait!" Harry said quickly. When MacLeod stopped, he pointed to the headless body. "What do we do about _him_?"

MacLeod gave Harry a long look. "I have a shovel in my car," he said at last. "We will need to bury the body before we leave this place."

Harry looked over at Powers' body. "Well, in that case…" he pointed his wand at the ground. "_Effodio_," he said, and a rectangular gouge appeared in the earth next to the body. Harry repeated the spell several more times, deepening the hole, then levitated the body and head into the grave. "_Repleo_!" Harry canted, and the grave refilled with dirt. Finally, "_Provento gramen_," and grass began to cover the bare dirt over the grave. In a few seconds it was impossible to tell that the ground had been disturbed at all.

MacLeod watched these actions with growing interest. "Where can I get one of those?" he asked, smiling. "It would sure come in handy after my next battle."

"Well, you have to be born a wizard to use one," Harry told him. "Sorry."

"Oh, well." MacLeod clapped Harry on the shoulder. "Come on, let's get back to my houseboat and figure out how to get you home."

=ooo=

MacLeod's houseboat, the _Amanda_, was moored on the Seine across from the Notre Dame cathedral. MacLeod gave Harry a quick tour, showing him were he could bed down if he needed to stay for any length of time, and getting him a cup of tea before they sat down to talk.

On the dock before entering the houseboat, Harry had cast another detection charm and found the Anti-Disapparition Jinx still in place. That was puzzling and strange — how could his captor have anticipated where Harry would be unless he had plotted this all out ahead of time? He should have tried the Apparate on his way back to MacLeod's houseboat but he hadn't wanted to be rude and simply disappear. MacLeod had spent the trip back pointing out Paris landmarks — they'd gone past the Arc de Triomphe in the Place de l'Étoile, the Lourve, and The Conciergerie, a medieval building where prisoners were kept before being beheaded during the French Revolution. He pointed out the Eiffel Tower in the distance as they drove along the Seine toward his houseboat.

Harry learned MacLeod was an antiques dealer, an ideal occupation for a man who had lived for hundreds of years and spent time in countries around the world. As they talked, Harry pondered the motives of his erstwhile "captor" in giving him so much free time to talk to MacLeod, who was over twenty times Harry's age and full of wisdom and experience. If anyone could help Harry figure out how to escape his predicament, it was this man!

"It _is_ strange," MacLeod agreed, when Harry pointed out his difficulties in trying to escape. "If as you say, your captor has to enchant the places you go to keep you from escaping. He would have to be watching you constantly to know where you're going."

"I suppose that's possible," Harry mused. "There are spells designed to track the location of wizards. When we're underage there's a spell called the Trace that's put on newborns so the Ministry of Magic will know where they are. It also tells them whenever an underage wizard uses his wand where he's not supposed to. I got into trouble a couple of times because of that — once when I hadn't done anything at all, and once when I was defending myself and my cousin against dementors."

"What are dementors?" MacLeod asked. "I've never heard of them."

Harry grimaced. "They're magical beings that can drain you of happy thoughts and positive emotions. They were used to help guard a wizards' prison until a few years ago, when they joined Voldemort, the Dark Lord who tried to kill me when I was a year old, after he killed my parents. But my mother sacrificed herself to create a powerful protection for me that caused Voldemort's killing spell to rebound on him."

"So he died," MacLeod surmised.

"Well, not quite," Harry averred. "He also had powerful Dark magic protecting him as well, and while his body was destroyed his soul remained bound on earth until he was able to have one of his followers perform a ritual that restored his body. He used my blood to give him immunity to the protection I had against him, making us equals once again. He began another war that lasted three more years, until he and I battled and I was able to finally defeat him."

"And you're sure that this person who's causing you trouble now is not him?" MacLeod suggested.

"No," Harry said, but at the same moment a sliver a doubt lodged in his brain. _Could that be possible_? _Surely not_. "No," Harry said, more firmly this time. "He's dead, I'm sure of that."

"And are you still unable to use magic to leave this place?" MacLeod continued.

Harry concentrated a moment, casting a detection spell. "I can still feel the Jinx around me."

MacLeod looked very thoughtful. "Even though we're on water at the moment?"

"I —" Harry stopped, trying to remember. Could the Anti-Disapparition Jinx be cast on water? Unlike dry ground, water _flowed_. But what if you cast it on whatever the water covered? "How deep is the river?"

"It averages about nine and a half meters," MacLeod replied. "Why?"

"I'm trying to remember how high you have to be above an place that's been Jinxed before you can Apparate away," Harry muttered. He shook his head. Well, if he couldn't remember, he had way to find out!

"Let's go on deck," Harry said to MacLeod. "I want to try something."

Once outside, Harry pulled out his mokeskin pouch, reached in and pulled out his Invisibility Cloak, handing it to his host. "That will make me invisible," he said, and MacLeod's eyebrows shot up in surprise. He reached back into the pouch and pulled out his Nimbus 2100 as the Immortal's eyebrows reached new heights.

"That's a handy pouch," MacLeod said, could it hide something like my sword inside it?"

"I have a lot more inside it," Harry grinned, putting it away again, then taking the Cloak from MacLeod and draping it over himself. Most of him vanished except for his head and part of the Nimbus.

"What I'm going to do," Harry said, is fly upward a few hundred feet and try to Apparate. Since the ground is Jinxed I'm going to Apparate upward — that's probably the only direction I can go anyway. If that works I'll Apparate in some random direction and try to find someplace I can land. _And if it doesn't work_, Harry thought but didn't say, _I can just use the broom to fly back to Britain_. He put his hand out. "Thanks for helping me, Mr. MacLeod."

MacLeod smiled engagingly. "Call me Duncan," he said, taking Harry's hand. "It's been a very interesting experience meeting you, Harry Potter. Good luck."

Harry nodded and pulled the hood of the Cloak over him, disappearing completely from view. He gripped the handle of the Nimbus tightly — since he was flying straight up he'd have to put his feet on the bipod stand after he was in the air. Under the Cloak, he looked up, into the sky, and urged the Nimbus upward.

Nothing happened.

Harry tried again, with the same result. _What the hell_? He threw the hood off his head and looked at Duncan in frustration. "It won't fly!" he almost shouted, so vexed was he at this setback. "That bastard must've hexed my broom somehow!"

"Can you unhex it?" Duncan suggested. "Are you a wizard, or aren't you?"

Harry gave MacLeod a hard stare. "Of course I am." He pulled the Invisibility Cloak off himself and stuffed it back into the pouch. He pointed his wand at the broom and said loudly, "_Finite_!" He tried getting the Nimbus to lift him in the air, but it wouldn't budge him an inch. Frustrated, Harry stuffed the broom back into his pouch. "But my opponent a wizard, too, and he seems to have covered every angle. I can't undo his spell."

"Well, you can't give up," Duncan told him. "You just have to —" he cut himself off, looking around.

"What?" Harry asked, after a moment. "What is it?"

"Company," Duncan said. "Someone I know, I think. He feels familiar."

"_Feels_ familiar?" Harry looked around, not understanding what Duncan meant. "How can you feel someone —" But at that moment a man came into view, walking along the dock. He was dark-haired, Harry saw, tall and thin, with unremarkable features except for a slightly prominent nose, and wearing a long coat over his street clothes.

Duncan had stepped forward when the man appeared, moving between him and Harry. "Don't let him see your broom," Duncan muttered over his shoulder. "He doesn't trust wizards." Harry quickly stuffed it into his pouch.

"So, Highlander," the man said as he approached the houseboat. "I wondered when we would me again."

Duncan was instantly on alert. This man _looked_ like Methos, _sounded_ like Methos, but he wasn't acting like the man Duncan knew. Methos wouldn't have blurted out a term like "Highlander" in front of someone he didn't know. "It's not as if I've been hiding from you," he replied, cautiously. _What was Methos up to_?

Methos leaned to one side, trying to see around MacLeod. "Who's your little friend here? Another acquaintance from the past?"

"No," Duncan said, watching as Methos stepped aboard the houseboat. "Just someone I gave a lift to. He was about to leave," Duncan turned, giving Harry a _follow-my-lead_ look.

Harry caught the look and nodded fractionally. "Yeah, I was," he said. "Thanks for the lift, Mr. MacLeod, I appreciate it." He moved toward the side of the houseboat, but the new arrival put a hand on his shoulder as he tried to step by him. Duncan tensed, prepared for anything Methos might do. Something was definitely wrong with him.

"No need to run off so quickly, friend," Methos said, smiling. "Any friend of MacLeod's is a friend of mine."

Harry glanced at the hand on his shoulder. It looked as if it were just resting there but the man had a pretty strong grip. "Sorry," he said. "I need to get going." He glanced back at Duncan. "Thanks again for your help. I hope I'll be able to repay you someday," he added, hoping Duncan would catch his meaning. Harry would pretend to leave but he didn't plan on going anywhere while this man was around, not after he saw how the Highlander had reacted to his presence.

Duncan had caught his meaning, and he shook his head, trying to warn Harry off. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Everything's fine."

Methos looked at Duncan, grinning, then turned back to Harry and patted his shoulder. "See, that's why you should stay," he said, heartily. "Everything's _fine_, Duncan says!" His hand drifted to the inside of his coat, and Duncan mirrored his motion. "But," Methos went on, sounding disappointed, "if you must leave, then I suppose I should wish you the best of — _luck_!"

With that last word Methos suddenly drew, his sword flashing up and around toward Harry's neck. At the same moment Duncan's sword came out and slid between it and Harry, deflecting Methos' blade upward. Both swords missed Harry by an inch.

"Move!" Duncan shouted, stepping between Harry and Methos and positioning his katana to defend both of them. Something was _definitely_ wrong with Methos! "What's happened to you?" Duncan shouted at his fellow Immortal. "He's not one of us!"

"He's with you," Methos replied, grimly. "That's enough to make him a target."

"_Why_?" Duncan cried. "Tell me what's going on!" Both men were moving now — Methos was trying to step around Duncan, trying to get at Harry, but Duncan kept blocking his way. "Maybe I can help you!"

"I don't think so," Methos replied in a condescending tone. "There's nothing wrong with me. If you don't want me to take your friend's head, you're going to have to kill me."

_Kill the oldest living Immortal, and his friend_? Duncan thought. They had clashed in the past, true, but now Duncan could hardly think of killing Methos. They had gone through too much together, helped each other too many times to throw all that away now.

On the other hand, Duncan realized, he couldn't let Methos kill Harry in cold blood, and that's what would happen if Duncan fell first.

Behind him, Duncan sensed that Harry had drawn his wand, and instinctively moved to block him from attacking Methos. "Duncan," Harry growled angry now that he realized how close he'd come to losing his head. "Let me take him, it doesn't have to come to you killing one another —"

"What do you know about killing, boy?" Methos spat, before Duncan could say anything. "Have you lived for hundreds of years amongst illiterate savages, fighting others like you just to stay alive? You'll never know the exhilaration of taking your enemy's head, of feeling his power coursing through you. You and your pathetic little magician's stick, you think you have power? Power, real power is something you _take_ from the enemies who fall before you!"

"You don't really believe that, Methos," Duncan said, slowly.

"Don't I?" Methos showed him a savage grin. "Maybe you don't know me as well as you think, MacLeod."

"I'm starting to wonder that myself," Duncan agreed. "Maybe I _do_ need to take your head, Methos, if that's how you really feel." He stepped forward and their swords touched — there was a sizzle of electricity and sparks flew from both blades as their energies flowed into the swords they held. "Alright then — to the death!"

Both men began their battle in earnest. Methos adopted a "feint and bait" strategy, designed to pull Duncan into making a mistake and leaving himself open for attack. But Duncan would not be baited. His sword guarded him well; he did not fall for most of Methos' feints. The few times his sword was drawn out where Methos could slip around it, Duncan was able to recover and deflect his strike in time.

Methos began to press harder, trying to force Duncan back toward an edge of the houseboat, to run in with a series of attacks designed to push Duncan over the edge. Duncan, seeing this was Methos' goal, sidestepped the attacks. Harry, for his part, realized that Duncan was keeping himself between him and Methos, so the other Immortal couldn't rush Harry. A part of Harry _wanted_ the man to attack him — a Stunner or two should stop him in his tracks, and that was the least of what Harry thought he could do. Whatever these men were, they were only swordsmen after all was said and done. Against wizards swordsmen didn't stand a chance.

But both men were consumed by the battle now — Harry had been forgotten as he watched them move back and forth across the deck, their swords flashing in the sun as they sought an opening in the other's defenses. Harry pointed his wand but hesitated — if he missed and accidentally hit Duncan, it would give the other Immortal a chance to kill him. Harry stood at the ready, prepared to strike if the men should move apart.

But at that moment MacLeod's blade slipped past Methos' guard and sliced into his side, and Methos felt to one knee, his arm pressed against his wound as he grimaced in pain. Duncan laid the edge of his katana on Methos' neck. "Are we done?" he asked, his voice as cold as ice.

Methos stared up at him for a long moment, then looked down, nodding. Duncan looked over at Harry, seeing his wand at the ready. "Don't do anything, Harry, Methos won't attack us now —"

Methos hand, which had slid inside his coat, suddenly came out with a long dagger and plunged into Duncan's stomach. Duncan gasped and stepped away, the dagger still in him, and Methos stood up, his sword in a two-handed grip, and swung mightily at Duncan's neck.

But even surprised and wounded, Duncan's fighting skills took over. He deflected Methos' blow up and over him, spinning around so his blade came at the back of Methos' neck. In a moment it was over as Methos' head rolled onto the deck.

As the body fell to the deck Duncan dropped to his knees beside it. Harry, concerned, ran forward but halted a few feet away when Duncan put up a hand. "Be careful," he gasped, pulling the dagger out of himself and throwing it over the side. "You know what happens next!"

The body began to glow. But as it did, it also began to _change_. As both men watched in surprise and horror, the decapitated head of Methos softened and flowed into another man's face. "Keane," Duncan whispered, then gasped as the first jolt of the Quickening shot through his body.

Harry gasped as well as a bolt struck _him_. Both men shuddered as bolt after bolt of the Quickening wracked their bodies, and rigging and supplies on the ship exploded as stray bolts hit them.

Within a minute it was over. Amazingly, the houseboat hadn't been set ablaze by the mass of bolts that had exploded from Methos' — or rather, Keane's body.

Harry had fallen to his knees as well, and was staring at Duncan over the dead body between them. "What — what happened?" he asked hoarsely. "Why was I affected, too?"

"I don't know," Duncan grunted painfully, shaking his head. "Normally, mortals aren't affected by a Quickening. But you're a wizard — maybe that's why you absorbed some of Keane's power."

"Do you know him?" Harry asked, staring at the now-unfamiliar face of the man Duncan had just killed.

"Steven Keane," Duncan said, getting slowly to his feet. "He and I have some history — I killed a friend of his a couple of hundred years ago, because he'd been one of the men who massacred Scots at the Battle of Culloden, in 1746." Duncan looked at Harry. "I thought Keane and I had settled our differences." His expression hardened. "Harry, do you know any magic that could make one man look like another?"

"Yes," Harry said. "There's a potion — Polyjuice Potion — that can make someone look exactly like someone else for an hour. When Methos changed back into Steven Keane it looked like the effects of that potion were wearing off."

"Did _you_ give anyone a potion like that before I met you?" Duncan asked, his voice still hard.

"No!" Harry stood as well. He still hurt from the effects of the bolts that had struck him, but he also felt — better, stronger, rejuvenated, as if his magic had somehow increased. "When you first saw me I had only just appeared, on the other side of that hill. You and the man you were fighting were the first people I saw!"

"Alright," Duncan said, relaxing, then looked carefully at Harry. "How to you feel?"

"Better, to tell you the truth," Harry replied. "It's like I absorbed some of whatever this Keane character had inside him."

"The Quickening," Duncan nodded. "That's interesting. I've never met a mortal who was able to do that. How much stronger do you feel?"

"I'm not — wait," Harry said, then suddenly vanished. MacLeod looked around, finally seeing Harry walking toward him on the dock. "I can Apparate again," Harry said. "The Anti-Apparition ward had been placed on me—that's why I wasn't able to escape it. I was able to break the spell with the extra power I now have. I think I'll be able to Apparate to London now and try to contact the Ministry of Magic."

Duncan made a decision. "I want to go with you," he told Harry. "I want to talk to someone about who might have given Keane the potion you mentioned, and why he was made to look like Methos."

"They would have needed a bit of Methos to do that," Harry said. "A little of his hair would do. As to why, it seems like you trust this Methos quite a lot, is that true?"

Duncan nodded.

"Then that's why," Harry said, grimly. "Whoever did this used that trust against you. I think it must have been the same wizard who's sending me on these damned missions."

"Then we need to find him," Duncan said, just as grimly. "And stop him. If you, a wizard, can absorb Quickening from Immortals, then he can as well. And we can't have someone like that running around killing Immortals and gaining their power."

Harry nodded agreement. "We'd better start at the Ministry, then, so I can let them know what's going on. But first, I suppose we need to dispose of that dead body on the deck of your houseboat."

"That would be a good idea," Duncan said, solemnly. He would be in a world of trouble if the _gendarmes_ found that body lying about on his boat.

=ooo=

Harry and Duncan appeared next to a pub on a little-used street that included several shabby offices and a heavily graffitied wall with a red telephone box in front of it. Duncan let go of Harry's arm and leaned forward, feeling sick.

"Sorry," Harry said, sympathetically. "I felt the same way after my first Side-Along Apparition."

"It's okay," Duncan gasped, taking several deep breaths. "It's about the same as when I sense the presence of another Immortal. I just didn't expect it." He stood. "I'm fine."

"There it is," Harry said, pointing toward the red phone box. He walked over to it. The box was in bad shape as well, with painting sprayed all across it and several panes of glass missing from the sides. He opened the door, stepping inside and motioning for Duncan to follow him. They closed the door behind them.

"Don't touch anything," Harry warned, remembering what happened the last time he tried to use a Ministry telephone box, the one in America.

"That's going to be difficult," Duncan said, dryly. "It's pretty tight in here. And smelly." That was true — the inside of the box reeked of urine. The Ministry must be trying to make it as authentic as possible. He glanced over toward the nearby pub and thought, they'd done a fair job of it.

"Here we go," Harry said. The phone was dangling at a crooked angle, as if someone had tried to tear it off the wall of the box. He pushed down the hook for a few seconds and dialed 6-2-4-4-2, the numbers corresponding to M-A-G-I-C.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, Harry dialed again. And again. But nothing was happening. "What's wrong?" Duncan asked, concerned by the look on Harry's face.

"There should be a voice asking for our names and business here at the Ministry," Harry said, a touch of desperation in his voice. He wasn't sure what to do next if he couldn't contact anyone in the British magical government. They might have to go to Diagon Alley to see if he could find George Weasley or someone else he knew there —

There was a rapping on the door. Harry and Duncan both turned to see an elderly, raggedly-dressed man gesturing impatiently at them to open the door. When Harry opened it, the old man said, irritably, in a coarse British accent, "'Urry up, will yeh? Oi've got t' pee!"

"Sorry," Harry said. "We're using it at the moment."

"Well, shake a leg, then!" the old man snapped. "Let summat else 'ave their turn!"

"Sir," Duncan said, pointing to the pub. "Perhaps you should go use the facilities over there."

"Why?" the old man cackled. "Can't get t' the Ministry from over there, can yeh?"

Harry instantly drew his wand, pointing it toward the old man. But he had drawn a wand as well, and the door suddenly slammed shut, almost catching Harry's wand in the doorway; he pulled it back barely in time.

"Not very quick there, Harry," the old man grinned. His accent was suddenly much more proper and cultured. "I think if you were an Immortal you'd be dead by now."

"What do you know about Immortals?" Duncan demanded, before Harry could reply.

"Quite a bit," the old man smirked at Duncan. "Immortals have been around for thousands of years, living among humans as you played your little Game, trying to win the Prize, whatever that's supposed to be. It doesn't seem like it's worth it, from my perspective."

"That's not for you to judge!" Harry snapped angrily. "You're no Immortal anyway — you're the bloody bloke who's been jerking me around for the past few days with these stupid missions!"

"True enough," the old man agreed. "And I'm pleased to see that you've already completed your mission this time, Harry Potter."

"Which was — what?" Harry demanded. "You didn't give me anything telling me what I was supposed to do!"

"Oh, I did," the old man disagreed. "You just never found it. Feel around in your mokeskin pouch for an envelope."

Glaring at the old man, Harry slid the pouch out of his pocket and thrust his hand inside. After a few seconds his hand closed on a letter-sized piece of parchment and he drew it out, finding his name on the front. He looked up at the old man again. "What's it say?"

"It says for you to guard MacLeod here as someone would be trying to take his head disguised as a friend of his," the old man replied. He looked chagrinned. "You ruined a pretty good scenario I had set up — after I sent Keane after MacLeod disguised as Methos, I was going to convince Methos himself that MacLeod had gone bad and needed stopping. I knew that whichever one of those two bought it, the Quickening from their passing would be _massive_. It's possible, Harry, that you'd be even more powerful than me after receiving half of that much energy and experience."

"Are you insane?" Harry shouted. "I didn't want anyone to _die_, even if I got more power because of it!"

"Keane was a good man," Duncan said, slamming his fists against the door of the telephone box, though the door held tight. "He and I had settled our differences! What did you do to him to make him attack me?"

"It wasn't that difficult," Harry's captor said. "He still held a grudge against you, you know. But after you and he last fought and you let him live, he felt guilty about how little he'd thought of you before then. I just convinced him that you would probably use that against him someday, when you met again. Then he wanted an edge against you, and I gave him one — I made him look like your friend, Methos, so he could walk up to you without suspicion."

"You bastard," MacLeod snarled. "When I get out of here you and I are going to have a serious disagreement."

"No, we won't," the old man smiled. "Because Harry and I are done here. Harry, there's a five-pence piece in the frame of that broken window next to you. Pick it up and in five seconds you'll Portkey out of there and on to your next mission."

"And what if I refuse," Harry said, grimly.

"Well, then you and MacLeod should settle in for a _long_ stay in that box," the old man told him. "I've reinforced the Anti-Apparition wards around here so even you can't force your way through them. And you'll never find your way into the Ministry, either — I've made sure of that."

"What if I take the coin?" Duncan said, reaching for it. "That gets me out of this box, doesn't it?"

"No," the old man said. "It's keyed so that only Harry Potter can activate it."

"How could you do _that_?" Harry was genuinely puzzled by the old man's statement. "Only _I_ could create a Portkey that was keyed to me alone!"

"I'll bet there's a _lot_ you don't remember about what happened before you found yourself in that field a few hours ago," the old man informed him. "Anyway, it's up to you. When you pick up the Portkey and disappear the box will open and let MacLeod out. I'll be waiting when you finally give in." The old man disappeared.

There was silence for some time in the telephone box. Finally Duncan spoke up. "So, what do we do now?"

"I think I should do what he said," Harry said, reluctantly. He hated giving in to the man again but this was affecting Duncan as well. _Had_ affected him greatly already, Harry realized.

"What if I held onto you when you take that coin?" Duncan asked. "Do you think I would travel with you like before?"

"Probably," Harry said, slowly. "Anyone touching a Portkey is transported with it when it activates. But I don't know where we'll end up, and I don't want anything to happen to you because of me."

"I can handle myself," Duncan declared. "You don't have to worry about me."

"But I would," Harry retorted. "This bastard's been ahead of me every step of the way. What if he expects you to come with me and has something planned that you can't deal with? Magic is _powerful_, Duncan! In all the stories written where swordsmen and wizards fight and the swordsman wins, those stories were written by swordsmen! In the real world the wizard always wins."

Duncan sighed heavily. "Alright. I want you to get him, though," he said, intently. "Don't give up, and never stop trying to win."

"I won't," Harry agreed. He stuck out his hand. "Thanks for all the help you've given me, Duncan MacLeod." The two men shook hands; Harry could feel a tingle as their palms touched.

"Well, here goes," Harry said, and picked up the coin. "If this doesn't work I don't know what we'll —" There was a sudden blast of wind and colors, dazzling Duncan for a moment. When he could see again Harry was gone, and the door of the phone box was slowly opening.

Duncan stepped out of the phone box and looked around, trying to decide if he should get a drink at the pub nearby before figuring out how to get himself and his sword home without having to go through customs. Well, at worst, as an antiques dealer, he could have it shipped to his business address, though he preferred to keep it as close to himself as possible. After all, one never knew when the next Immortal would show up, ready to play the Game.


	5. Sheldon Cooper

Harry Potter Versus

**Chapter Five**

**Sheldon Cooper**

Or:

_The Magic Wand Disambiguation_

_Updated June 21, 2012_

=ooo=

When the Portkey finally released him Harry found himself once again in unfamiliar surroundings. Looking around, he saw he was in a shop of some kind, with rows and rows of tables with boxes filled with plastic-covered magazines. There were more magazines covering the walls of the shop, but these were uncovered and Harry could see that most of them had bright, gaudy covers, with strangely-clothed people on them. Most of these covers depicted the people on them in poses suggesting fighting or violence. The covers of these magazines had unusual titles like _The Adventures of Superman_ and _Justice League International_.

Where in the world was he now?

Other people were in the shop — mostly young men, all looking intently through boxes of plastic-covered magazines or at the wall displays. Harry saw a man standing behind a glass counter staring at him. The man was thin, with curly hair and a mournful expression on his face. He was looking at Harry as if he was trying to figure out whether he knew him — Harry had seen that expression many times on people wondering whether he was _the_ Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, with the whole scar-on-his-forehead look and everything, or just some wizard who wanted to be like him. Harry nodded at the man, smiling, and the man nodded back, looking uncertain but apparently thinking Harry belonged in the store.

Wherever he was, Harry decided, he needed to check if he still had all of his stuff. He felt for and found his mokeskin pouch in his pocket, then reached back and slid his wand out of the back pocket that hid it from view. Holding it, he cast a recognition charm to make sure — yes, the wand in his hand was his own, original holly-and-phoenix-feather wand. Harry sighed to himself in relief.

Now that he had his wand and his pouch, Harry thought, he might actually be done with these ridiculous missions his unknown captor had been sending him on. There was just one thing left to check, he decided.

Harry pulled his mokeskin pouch out of his pocket and reached inside. "Is there a letter in here?" he muttered to himself, then groaned as his fingers found something that felt like parchment. He pulled his hand out, finding an envelope with his name on it. Harry cursed silently to himself. He recognized the handwriting on the envelope as his own. His captor had evidently somehow intercepted his Portkey travel and put this envelope in his pouch, so he probably wasn't done with this insanity. He would have to get out of this shop and read the contents of this letter to find out what was going on, what he was expected to —

"Harry Potter?"

Hearing his name spoken aloud startled Harry. He spun around to find a young man staring at him quizzically. "Yes?" Harry said automatically. "What?"

The man was looking Harry up and down, and finally tipped his head back, smiling crookedly at him. He was about Harry's height (which wasn't very tall, to Harry's sometime chagrin) with wavy black hair that looked a bit messy, black-framed glasses similar to Harry's own (except they weren't round like Harry's), dressed in a green T-shirt with a symbol on it Harry didn't recognize, a light jacket, jeans and trainers. "I mean, are you supposed to be Harry Potter?" the guy asked. "You've got the costume down solid — and that lightning scar on your forehead looks pretty realistic."

"What?" Harry said again. Was he back home again, but in some Muggle book shop where someone happened to know him, somehow?

"Ooh," the guy said, seeing the wand in Harry's hand. "Cool wand! Can I see —?" he extended a hand toward it and Harry drew back automatically.

The guy pulled his hand back. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to —"

"Do you know me?" Harry asked, still trying to figure out what was going on.

"Well, I know who you're supposed to be," the guy answered. He looked around. "I didn't know Stuart sold Harry Potter collectibles in here. Or did you get that stuff somewhere else?"

He might as well have been speaking Gobbledegook — Harry had no idea what he was on about. "Er — I don't —"

"I saw the movies," the man went on. "But I didn't read all of the books, though a couple of my friends have. My roommate wants to be a wizard, or so he keeps telling me — personally, I think he'd make a great Dark Lord, myself," he added, with a grin, mystifying Harry even more.

"So…you've…_read_ about Harry Potter?" Harry asked, trying hard to understand. "Was it in the _Daily Prophet_?"

"Well, no," the man was looking at him with a bit of confusion of his own. "Like I said, I didn't read all the books."

"The books…" Harry repeated. As far as he knew, he was mentioned in _Modern Magical History_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_, but that was because Hermione had read them and shown him.

"Yeah," the man said, looking at him oddly. He glanced around the store again then pointed to a bookcase. "You know, like those." He walked over and Harry followed him, where an array of books faced him, most of them with his name on them. Harry stared at them in complete confusion.

_Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_. _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_. _The Prisoner of Azkaban_. _The Gobet of Fire_. _The Order of the Phoenix_, the _Half-Blood Prince_, and the _Deathly Hallows_. What _was_ this? The last book had a picture of him in a T-shirt and wizard's robes, one hand reaching upward. Harry picked up the book and flipped it over, finding Voldemort on the opposite side, hands similarly stretched out. He looked up to find the guy grinning at him. "Pretty cool," he said, pointing to the picture on the front. "That really looks like you."

"Yeah," Harry muttered. "It does." He flipped the book open to a random page and began reading.

"'To Harry James Potter,'"he read, and Harry's insides contracted with a sudden excitement, "'I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.'"

As Scrimgeour pulled out the tiny, walnut-sized golden ball, its silver wings fluttered rather feebly, and Harry could not help feeling definite sense of anticlimax.

"Why did Dumbledore leave you this Snitch?" asked Scrimgeour.

Harry closed the book, shaking his head. He _remembered_ the excitement he'd felt when Scrimgeour read that Professor Dumbledore had left something to him, and the letdown he'd experienced when the Minister pulled the Snitch from the pouch that held it, a pouch similar to but larger than the mokeskin pouch Hagrid had given him.

Harry flipped through more pages and read again at random. Each time he did he found his thoughts, his feelings, correctly expressed in the pages of this book. He might have thought, seeing this, that Rita Skeeter had spent the entire year he, Ron and Hermione had spent on the run from Voldemort sitting on his shoulder recording everything he did, if that wasn't blatantly impossible.

Harry slowly put the book back on the shelf. He had no way to explain this. His entire life written up in a series of books? Who would have done something like this? _How_ could they have put that much detail in there? And why was his life seemingly public knowledge? No one was supposed to know wizards even _existed_!

"Look, I gotta get going," the guy was saying. "I'm picking up Thai food for my friends and myself. We just started having Thai on Friday nights. We used to do Thai on Monday nights but then we switched with Friday, so now Mondays are Chinese night. And I guess that's more than you really needed to know." The guy grinned awkwardly. "Anyway, I stopped by the comic store to kill a few minutes until it was ready."

Harry stared at him blankly, not knowing what to say or even what to think. His entire world had just been turned upside down and he was listening to some stranger talk about picking up take away?

The guy seemed to sense something was wrong. "Are you okay?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned. "You look a little — flummoxed…"

"Flummoxed" didn't _begin_ to describe how Harry felt, but he found himself smiling at the guy's concern in spite of his own confusion. "Thanks," he said, trying to reassure him. "I'm just tired, I guess, I've had a busy —" _Week, he wanted to say_. "— day today."

"Well, you're welcome to join us for dinner," the man offered. "We're going to have a lot of leftovers that'll probably be thrown away anyway. By the way, I'm Leonard Hofstadter," he added, extending his hand toward Harry.

"I'm —" Harry suddenly realized he probably shouldn't use his own name; it would seem like too much of a coincidence. And he didn't want this guy thinking he _was_ Harry Potter — or that he was claiming to be him. "I'm James…Evans," Harry said, taking Leonard's hand and shaking it.

"Glad to meet you, James," Leonard said, grinning. He jerked a thumb at the door. "Come on, let's go get that food and get back to my apartment."

Several sacks of Thai food later they were standing in the lobby of an apartment building, staring at the Out of Order sign and caution tape strung across the elevator doors. Leonard, for some reason, was looking slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry the elevator's out of order," Leonard said. "It's kind of a long story…"

"It's no problem," Harry, who was carrying two of the sacks, assured him. "What floor are you on?"

"Four," Leonard said, as they began walking up.

"So what happened with the elevator?" Harry asked. "I guess we have time for you to tell me."

"Oh." Leonard reddened. "Well, I kind of blew it up."

"Really?" Harry was surprised. Leonard had said he worked at a university; how could he have managed to destroy an _elevator_? He glanced at the elevator doors on the first floor (no — _second_ floor, Americans counted floors differently) as they passed it; they were taped just like the ones on the ground floor.

"Yeah," Leonard went on. "I was making rocket fuel and I kinda miscalculated the formula when I changed it to work in a model rocket."

"Wow," Harry said. He didn't understand any of that except for the rocket part. "That must've made the other people here mad."

"Well, nobody found out who did it," Leonard said as they rounded the third floor. "My roommate didn't tell anyone what happened, and the police had no leads to go on, so…"

They stopped on the fourth floor in front of a door marked 4A. "Well, here we are," Leonard said, pulling out a key and unlocking it. They stepped inside.

There were several people already in the apartment: a fellow Harry recognized as coming from India, sitting on the floor next to a brown leather divan; on the divan were a two men and a woman, one guy had a prominent nose and hair that looked like a bowl cut, and the woman was blonde and cute, wearing glasses similar to Leonard's. The third man on the divan was thin, with a boyish face and a much-too-haughty expression, staring disapprovingly at Leonard.

"Well, it's about time you got back," the thin man said, as Harry followed Leonard over to a coffee table and sat the sacks of food down on it. His eyes fell on Harry. "And what have I told you about bringing home strays, Leonard?"

"It's not what you think, Sheldon," Leonard retorted. "I met him at the comic book store. He has some Harry Potter collectibles you might like to look at."

Sheldon, the thin man, might have been interested, but he only said, "You have no idea what I'm thinking," in a condescending tone. "And where you found him is immaterial."

Leonard ignored him. "Howard, Raj, Bernadette," he said to the others. "This is James Evans. Doesn't he look like Harry Potter?" he asked enthusiastically.

Howard, the guy with the bowl cut, grinned and said, "Actually, Leonard, I thought he looked like you." He stood and shook hands with Harry. "Howard Wolowitz," he said. He gestured to the pretty blonde next to him. "This is my wife, Bernadette."

"Hi!" Bernadette said brightly, smiling at Harry, who smiled back. "You do look a little like Harry Potter, you know. Doesn't he, Raj?"

Raj, the Indian fellow, stood as well to shake Harry's hand, nodding at him but saying nothing. He sat back down.

"And that's Amy," Leonard said, pointing to a young woman with straight brown hair and (once again!) black-framed glasses like Leonard's, who was sitting in an overstuffed chair next to the divan. "She's Sheldon's girlfriend."

"Hello," Amy said, in a flat tone. "I agree," she went on, in precisely the same inflectionless voice. "You do seem to greatly resemble that character from the Harry Potter novels."

_Novels_? Harry thought. Well, that explained something, but brought up even more questions than it answered.

Sheldon, who'd been staring into the sacks of Thai food, looked up suddenly, seeming to see Harry for the first time. "Leonard," he said, sounding severe. "If you've somehow developed technology that allows you to bring fictional characters to life, then I have a few suggestions about who you create next. Specifically, Mr. Spock. The one from the Original Series, not from the movies. In addition, our roommate agreement requires that we share technology like that with one another."

Leonard rolled his eyes and turned to the coffee table. "Let's eat!" he said, trying to forestall the inevitable discussion about his responsibilities vis-à-vis the roommate agreement. He began pulling containers from the sacks and passing them around. "I hope you like noodles," he said to Harry. "They had a special on noodles."

"Noodles are good," Harry nodded, happy to eat anything offered him. He accepted a fork from Raj, nodded thanks, and dug into the noodles. They were delicious, if a bit spicy.

"I wonder where Penny is," Howard commented. "She knew you'd be back by now, Leonard."

"Yes, it _is_ unusual," Sheldon, who had spent the last minute alternately sniffing and digging around in his container of noodles. "The food is here but the freeloader is nowhere in sight."

"Sheldon, be nice," Leonard said, frowning as he nodded toward Harry. "We have a guest."

"There's no reason he shouldn't know about Penny, is there?" Sheldon asked, imperiously. "Or is our 'guest' not paying for his meal either?"

"Sheldon!" all three of the other guys there said in shocked tones. "James is our guest!" Leonard went on. "I invited him here. Don't worry, I'll take care of his part of the bill."

"I don't want to be a bother —" Harry began.

"Well, you already are," Sheldon said, cutting him off. "If you didn't want to be a bother you should have thought of that before you showed up here and began eating our food and disrupting our meal."

Harry, stunned at Sheldon's bad manners, looked at Leonard. "Don't pay any attention to him," Leonard said, waving off Sheldon's comments as inconsequential. "He's kind of crazy when people he doesn't know are around."

"He's kind of crazy, period," Howard piped up, helpfully. The pretty blonde, his wife Bernadette, slapped him lightly on the arm reprovingly, but she was smiling as well.

"I am the same as I always am," Sheldon spoke up. "And need I remind you again that I'm _not_ crazy, my —"

"Your mother had you tested," Leonard, Howard and Raj all said at once. "We know," Leonard added. He smirked and looked at Harry as he said, "But that's been some time ago — things might've changed."

The door of the apartment opened and Harry turned to see a very pretty blonde step inside. "I thought I smelled —" she took a few quick sniffs "— Thai food?" she asked, looking at Leonard.

"Very good!" Leonard smiled at her, and the way he looked at her told Harry that these two people were very close. "Penny, I'd like you to meet James Evans. I met him at the comic book store on my way to pick up dinner."

"Hi, James," Penny smiled, extending a hand for Harry, who shook it. Her grip was stronger than he'd expected for a pretty blonde. "You read comic books?" she asked, giving him an skeptical look. "You don't look like the comic book type."

"I don't, not a lot," Harry admitted. "I was a bit lost when Leonard found me."

Leonard looked at Harry, then at Penny. "What — er, what type _does_ he look like?" he asked her. Penny smiled indulgently at him but didn't respond.

"Doesn't he look like Harry Potter?" Leonard asked her, grinning.

"Harry what?" Penny asked blankly, shaking her head.

"Oh dear lord," Sheldon muttered. "She eats our food, you'd think she'd at least try to pay attention when we're discussing important stuff."

"I'll remember that the next time you tell me my new shoes are boring you," Penny retorted back at Sheldon, then walked over to the coffee table, picked up an unopened container of satay noodles, and began eating.

"So, James," Bernadette spoke up in the silence that followed. "How much do you know about Harry Potter?"

Harry considered a moment. "Quite a bit," he said, silently wondering what were in all those books about him. The cover of the book he'd picked up had "Year Seven" written on it; were they a record of his seven years at Hogwarts (okay, six years and that last year running around Britain trying to find Voldemort's Horcruxes). "I probably know more about Harry Potter than anyone here." He smiled at his private joke.

Sheldon looked up at that. He turned, fixing Harry with a skeptical expression. "Oh, I'm sure _that_ can't be right," he said, tartly. "_I'm_ the one here who knows everything about Harry Potter."

"Here we go," Leonard muttered, _sotto voce_, but with a smile quirking the corner of his mouth.

"I have read all seven books," Sheldon continued, as if Leonard hadn't spoken. "In addition, I've read _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_, _Quidditch Through the Ages_, _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_, and the short story about James Potter and Sirius Black and his motorcycle that was on Rowling's website. I have seen all eight movies and have them on DVD. I have the complete Chocolate Frog card collection. And a Harry Potter Marauder's Map, and Ravenclaw and Gryffindor House plaques, and a Firebolt model broom, and a Harry Potter wand. _Nobody_ knows more about Harry Potter than me."

"Well, maybe we should just have a little contest and see," Leonard said, desperately hoping to himself that his new friend could beat Sheldon in a quiz about Harry Potter. He'd had a custom Harry Potter _wand_, for Pete's sake! "James, what do you think?" Leonard asked Harry, looking at him hopefully.

"Sure," Harry said. "I'm game." Whatever was going on here, nobody could possibly know more about his own life than he did!

Sheldon smiled. "All right, then," he said, smugly. "Let the game begin!"

=ooo=

"How are we going to do this?" Harry wanted to know.

Sheldon smiled with an aura of superiority. "Quite simple. I will ask a question. If you correctly answer you get to ask me a question. If you are _incorrect_ I get ten points and get to ask another question. First person to 100 points wins."

"That sounds easy enough," Harry agreed. Leonard brought over a chair for him and he sat across the coffee table from Sheldon. "Go ahead."

Raj suddenly leaned over and whispered something into Howard's ear. "No, you _don't_ get to play the winner," Howard told him after he finished whispering. Raj leaned over again. Howard jerked away after a moment, saying "Will you stop trying to give me a wet willy?" Raj looked outraged but still said nothing.

Sheldon, who'd endured this exchange in a long-suffering silence, finally spoke. "Let's start you off with something easy, then. Hmm. What is Harry Potter's middle name?"

Harry smiled. "James," he said, "same as my name."

"Correct," Sheldon agreed. "Your turn."

Harry thought for a few seconds. "What is Harry Potter's birthday?"

"Oh, please," Sheldon rolled his eyes. "July 31. My turn. Name the four Houses at Hogwarts."

"Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin," Harry answered. "Who's the Head of Hufflepuff?"

"Professor Sprout," Sheldon answered instantly. "This next one will be a little harder. What is James Potter's birthday?"

Harry blinked; the question caught him off-guard. "Er — it's, er, March 27, 1960," he said, slowly. Memories of his father were flying unbidden into his head; this quiz was making him remember things he didn't want to remember right now.

"Correct," Sheldon admitted. "You do seem to know your Harry Potter. Go ahead, ask your next question."

Sheldon's attitude was beginning to piss Harry off. "What's the number of Harry Potter's vault in Gringotts?" he asked, curtly.

Sheldon was nonplussed for a moment. "That's not in the books," he objected. "I can't answer that because no one knows."

"I know," Harry said. "It's number 687. I get 10 points."

"That's right," Howard agreed. "That was in the first movie."

"That's _not_ right!" Sheldon looked outraged. "We're using information from the books, not the movies!"

"I don't remember you saying that before," Leonard was smiling broadly at Sheldon's dismay.

"Well it was _implied_!" Sheldon exploded. "We're dealing with canon Harry Potter here, not just any willy-nilly factoid that someone throws out! I don't want to play anymore!" he folded his arms stubbornly and sat, pouting.

"Okay," Leonard said, shrugging. "If you forfeit James wins, then."

"I don't care," Sheldon said. It was obvious he _did_ care.

"Maybe we should, ah, finish our dinner," Howard suggested.

Harry spent the rest of the meal in silence, barely listening to the others talk about the books. He recognized a lot of what was being talked about as incidents from his years at school. "Harry Potter" was a series of seven novels about a boy who finds out on his eleventh birthday that he's a wizard and can attend a school that will teach him how to be one. He also learns his parents were murdered by the Dark Lord, Voldemort, and that he must eventually fight and defeat this Dark Lord if there is to be peace in the Wizarding world.

In other words, the books were pretty much what his life had been like since he was eleven years old. But who had written these books, and how? And why reveal the existence of the Wizarding world, even in a novel? Some people might take these books seriously and think magic was real!

Dinner ended and the leftovers were put away, and Leonard suggested they play some Wii or XBox. _What are Wii and XBox_, Harry wondered, then discovered that video games had changed quite a bit since he'd played with his cousin's PlayStation while the Dursleys were out and he wasn't locked in the cupboard or his room. At some point during "Guitar Hero" the three women slipped out of the apartment, leaving the men to their games. Raj finally started talking, calling Harry "Dude," until it became annoying.

"Why did he start talking _now_?" Harry asked Leonard at one point, as Raj was taking his turn at Guitar Hero.

"He can't talk in front of women unless he's drunk," Leonard confided.

"That's weird," Harry said, looking at Raj.

"What's worse," Leonard added. "He's an obnoxious drunk. But at least he's not always whispering in our ears."

Later, as Harry watched Sheldon and Leonard play an archery game (which Sheldon seemed to be taking _very_ seriously, as he kept refilling his imaginary quiver with imaginary arrows from the TV screen), he remembered the letter in his pouch. He stood and looked around the apartment for a moment before asking, "Leonard? Can I use your toilet?"

"Sure, it's in there," Leonard pointed down the hall. "We're almost done here, by the way — Sheldon is about to win, as usual."

"What can I say, Leonard," Sheldon looked back at him, poised to fire an imaginary arrow into the screen. "Practice makes perfect."

"And the fact that your father taught you archery when you were a kid," Leonard pointed out.

Harry hurried down the hallway to the bathroom and shut himself in, locking the door. He sat down on the toilet seat, pulled out the pouch, then reached in and extracted the parchment envelope, pulled out the letter and began reading.

_Hi again, Harry,_

_For this mission I've selected an interesting assignment for you. You've probably discovered by now that you are known here as the hero of a story about your life and your fight with You-Know-Who. Why this is so is something you need to figure out in order to solve my puzzle and complete your overall assignment._

_As to your current mission: One of the people you'll meet today is a witch or wizard who never received a letter to attend a wizarding school. Your task is to figure out who that person is and tell them about the Wizarding world, so they have the opportunity to learn about wizardry if they so choose. However, you are not to use your wand to figure this out; if you do I will know and you'll fail this test. You have two days to accomplish this task or the test ends and you fail anyway. Good luck and happy witch hunting!_

"Figures," Harry muttered, stuffing the letter back into the envelope. The letter left him no better off than he was before, except that now he knew what he was doing here. It was not going to be easy figuring out who was the magical among the group; a few _Veneficum Revelio_s would have told him almost instantly who it was.

Before he left the restroom Harry quickly relieved himself (he really did have to go after all) then flushed and walked back into the apartment's living room to find the three women walking back in as well.

"Howie," Bernadette was saying. "It's late, time for us to go. I have to be at work at seven tomorrow morning."

"Fine, my little microbiologist," Howard stood and helped her into her jacket.

"I, too, must leave," Amy said, in her same flat voice. "I have some monkeys to dissect in the morning."

Sheldon looked up, interested. "That sounds fascinating. I wouldn't mind viewing that myself."

Amy smiled. "I'll have video, Sheldon — we can watch it together tomorrow evening, if you'd like."

"I'd like," Sheldon nodded. "Goodnight, Amy Farrah Fowler, have a pleasant day tomorrow with your dissections." They shook hands and Amy followed Howard and Bernadette out.

"See you!" Howard and Bernadette were saying to the others.

"See you," Leonard, Raj and Penny all waved goodbye as well.

"Well, I guess I should be going, too," Raj said, draining the last of his bottle of beer and moving toward the door. "Goodbye, Howard. Goodbye, Sheldon." He smiled sweetly at Penny. "Goodbye, Penny," he said, sounding much more wistful than he had during the previous two farewells.

"Goodbye, Raj," Penny said, much more matter-of-factly than Raj had. Still looking at her, Raj exited the apartment.

Sheldon looked at Harry. "Shouldn't you be exhibiting leave-taking behavior as well?" he insinuated.

"Yes, I suppose so," Harry agreed, reluctantly. No one had done anything so far that would have led him to believe that any of them were a witch or wizard. Usually something unusual would happen, like an object would suddenly shift in their direction or they would find things in their pockets they didn't think were there. So far, however, nothing like that had happened. Now he was going to have to leave and find some excuse to come back tomorrow and keep on trying to find the magical in this group.

"Do you have some place to stay?" Leonard asked.

"Actually, I don't," Harry admitted.

"Well, you could stay here," Leonard suggested. "We can make up a bed for you on the sofa with a blanket and pillow."

Sheldon, however, looked unhappy. "Unacceptable," he said. "Leonard, you haven't given adequate notice for a non-coital sleepover, according to the terms of the roommate agreement."

"How do you know it's non-coital?" Penny asked. Harry, Leonard and Sheldon all looked at her — Leonard looked completely non-plussed.

"Well, maybe Leonard's in a curious stage," Penny suggested, her words slurring a bit. She'd had something to drink, Harry realized.

"I'm _not_ curious!" Leonard said. "Not that it means you can't stay, James," he added quickly, looking at Harry. He turned to Sheldon. "And he's been here for hours, Sheldon. Can't we just ignore the roommate agreement for once?"

"And live like hippies?" Sheldon looked horrified. "Maybe we should just start staying up all night taking drugs and having coitus whenever we felt like it!"

"You're not supposed to use that word anymore," Penny pointed out.

"You mean, as opposed to doing it with any Tom, Dick or Harry in Pasadena?" Sheldon riposted snarkily.

"Okay, that's _enough_!" Leonard interrupted. "There has to be a solution to this!"

"Oh, there is," Penny spoke up. "He can sleep on my couch."

Leonard flinched violently. "That's not the solution I was looking for," he said, staring at Penny with confused horror splattered across his face. "Penny, can I speak to you outside for a minute?"

Penny and Leonard left the apartment. Left alone with Sheldon, unsure what to do next, Harry sat down in the overstuffed armchair and tried to make himself inconspicuous. Sheldon, however, was staring intently at him.

Finally, Sheldon spoke. "I think we need to have a conversation before Leonard and Penny return," he said, with a knowing look on his face, as if he and Harry were sharing a secret. "I think I know why you're here, 'James'." He made quote marks in the air on the last word.

"Really?" Harry asked, smiling to himself. It was too bad he couldn't tell Sheldon about his captor and the things he'd had to do for him over the past few days. It would likely blow the Muggle's mind — assuming he _wasn't_ the wizard his captor had alluded to being in this group. "Why do you think I'm here, then?"

"I think you really _are_ Harry Potter," Sheldon said, with a smug smile. "And you're here to tell me _I'm_ really a wizard and should be in the Wizarding world with you and Hermione and Ron and everyone else. Even Snape."

"That's very interesting," Harry said. "Considering Professor Snape's dead." And it _was_, really, given there was no way for Sheldon to know Harry was really who Sheldon thought he was. Most of Sheldon's intuitions were wildly inaccurate, Harry had gathered during the evening's conversations, and mostly just daydreams he had no qualms about expressing aloud. "What makes you think you might be a wizard?"

Sheldon seemed to be taking this _very_ seriously. He sat up straighter, composed himself as he were answering a question for an oral exam (Harry remembered his own O.W.L. practicals, which involved oral questioning as well) and said, "I believe I have the ability to control other people with just my words."

Harry believed that, because he'd seen Sheldon do it several times that evening, but, "I don't know if that's an indication that you're a wizard, Sheldon — a lot of Muggles can do that, too. What else have you got?"

"Well, I —" Sheldon stopped and appeared to be thinking. He did this for some time while Harry waited. "I thought that would be sufficient," he finally said.

"Well, can you make a person blow up like a balloon when you get angry at them?" Harry asked, remembering the disaster he'd had with Aunt Marge.

Sheldon looked disappointed. "No," he said in a subdued voice.

"Do people get a shock if they touch you when you don't want them to?" Harry queried.

"No," Sheldon said again, his mouth twitching in suppressed frustration.

"Do you ever find yourself in strange locations when being chased by bullies?" Harry asked.

"You mean, like at my mee-maw's house?" Sheldon asked, hopefully.

"No, I mean, like on top of a school," Harry suggested.

"No," he said, looking very unhappy.

"All those things happened to Harry Potter, didn't they?" Harry asked hoping that the things he'd mentioned were in the books.

"Yes," Sheldon admitted in a small voice.

"And he didn't have to use his wand when they happened, did he?"

"No," Sheldon agreed, glumly. "But," he pointed out, "that doesn't necessarily mean I'm not a wizard!"

"Actually, I think it does," Harry disagreed.

"But I _should_ be a wizard!" Sheldon protested. "I'm very intelligent — my I.Q. is 187, and I consider that value conditional since my intelligence cannot be accurately measured by any I.Q. test."

"Intelligence isn't necessarily an indicator of magical ability, Sheldon," Harry pointed out. "Many intelligent men in history have been Muggles."

"But that's so unfair!" Sheldon objected. "Intelligence should be the _sine qua non _of being a wizard!"

"I'm sure the books would show there are a lot of not-so-smart wizards," Harry suggested. _Like every Death Eater_, he added to himself.

"Oh, I suppose," Sheldon looked positively miserable now. "What a cruel, cruel world."

"Don't tell anyone my secret," Harry warned him. "Other people might start thinking they should be wizards as well…"

Sheldon nodded. "Mum's the word," he agreed, then pinched two fingers together and drew them across his lips.

=ooo=

Meanwhile, out in the hallway:

Leonard pulled the door closed after him then spun around quickly to face Penny. "What do you mean offering to let James sleep in your apartment tonight! You don't even know him!"

"Well, I know you," Penny pointed out, poking him in the chest. "You thought he was okay to bring home with you, to feed him and play video games with him. What's the problem?"

"Well —" Leonard sputtered, trying to think of something. "Well, what if I let him sleep in _my_ bed and _I_ sleep on your sofa?"

Penny smiled crookedly. "Jealous?"

"No!" Leonard objected automatically. Then, "Well, maybe a little…"

"What's the matter, Leonard?" Penny asked, arching an eyebrow at him. "Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you!" Leonard replied instantly. His next sentence was spoke much more hesitantly. "It's just that…you have had…a little...bit…to drink…tonight."

Penny's demeanor suddenly became flinty. "Oh, so you think I'm going to throw myself at this guy because I've had some wine?"

"Well, it's happened before," Leonard said, remembering the morning they found Penny and Raj coming out of his bedroom, her half-dressed and he clad in only a sheet.

Penny's mouth dropped open. "Look, Leonard, I thought we were through bringing that up," she hissed at him. "I thought you were going to let a mistake like that not affect our relationship now. But if your crazy roommate refuses to let someone spend a night on your couch and all you can think of is whether he's going to get into my pants, then —"

"No, no, it's okay!" Leonard quickly spoke over her, trying to keep her from breaking up with him _again_. And their beta-test relationship had been going along so well…! "If I can't get Sheldon to agree to let James stay with us, you can have him — I mean let him stay at your place — for the night. Does that sound okay?"

"I suppose," Penny said, looking obstinate. "But you won't get Sheldon to break that stupid roommate agreement."

"We'll see," Leonard said, determinedly, and opened the door to the apartment. He and Penny went back inside.

=ooo=

"It's about time," Sheldon said as Leonard and Penny came back in the room. "Leonard, have you decided where your guest will be spending the night?"

"I was hoping, here," Leonard said, trying to sound upbeat but failing. "Sheldon, it's just _one night_."

"And Pasadena is just one city," Sheldon replied. "But there are many, many places in which someone like James can get a good night's sleep. Just not here."

"_Really_?" Leonard managed to look angry. "Not getting any milk of human kindness from you tonight?"

"Leonard." Sheldon was shaking his head wearily. "You've known me how long, and still you persist in believing I'm capable of something like that?"

"Well, hope springs eternal," Leonard said, sarcastically. He turned to Penny. "You win. I hope James and you have a good night." Looking beaten, he turned and walked away, into the hallway and out of sight.

Penny seemed vaguely discomfited by that, but she shrugged and turned to Harry. "Well, looks like you're sleeping on my couch tonight, Bunkie."

"I heard that," Leonard said from the apartment hall.

"Good!" Penny said, loudly.

"Good!" Leonard echoed, just as loudly.

"Good," Sheldon agreed. "It's so satisfying when a plan comes together!"

Penny gave him a look of daggers. "_Goodnight_, Sheldon," she said, then took Harry's arm. "Come on, let's get you settled in for the night," she beamed at him. "I bet you'll sleep good tonight." She and Harry exited the apartment.

A few seconds later, Leonard's voice came from the hall. "I heard that."

Sheldon sighed. "They've already left, Leonard, they can't hear you."

"Thanks, Sheldon." The door to Leonard's room slammed shut.

Sheldon jumped at the noise, then shook his head. "So touchy."

=ooo=

In Penny's apartment, Penny made a beeline for the refrigerator, pointing at the sofa on her way past it. "Have a seat," she said to Harry as she opened the fridge and peered inside. "How about a nightcap before we hit the hay?"

"Uh, okay," Harry said, sitting down. He was feeling uncertain about what might happen if Penny consumed more alcohol on top of what she'd evidently had. "I'm already feeling a little sleepy, though."

"Me too," she said, coming out of the fridge with a half-empty wine bottle in her hand. She grabbed two glasses out of the sink, blew into them, then sat down next to Harry and filled them — a half-glass for him, and her own glass almost to the brim. "Down the hatch," she said, lifting her glass, and Harry slowly followed suit.

She clinked his glass and tipped hers back, draining half the contents in one swallow. Harry sipped at his, watching her warily. _What was she trying to do_?

"It was really nice of Leonard to invite me for dinner," Harry said, setting his glass down and shifting slightly away from Penny. Whatever she was trying to do, it was making him uncomfortable.

Of course, Harry reminded himself, Penny _was_ a very beautiful woman. And he was not completely immune to her feminine charms. _And_ his relationship with Ginny _was_ sort of on hold now, while she was playing Seeker for the Holyhead Harpies.

Penny drained the other half of her glass, then set it down and smiled tipsily at Harry. "Whatcha thinking?" she asked, in a teasing voice.

"I dunno, really," Harry said, wondering if he could really do this. "It seemed like Leonard really didn't want me over here, did he?"

"Pffft," Penny snorted dismissively. "He thinks because we've got some kind of butter test going that I can't do anything with anyone else." She picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass, then poured more in Harry's. Setting the bottle down again, she shifted closer to Harry. "You know, you kind of look like him, but a lot cuter. Leonard, that is, not Harry What-His-Name."

"Er, thanks," Harry smiled nervously. He had no idea what she meant by a "butter test." To give himself a moment to think, he grabbed his glass off the table and drained half of it in a gulp. "So, er, are you and Leonard seeing one another, then?" he asked, setting his glass down as she shifted forward again.

Penny, whose mouth was now only inches from his, blinked a few times. "Well, we've _seen_ one another for over five years now, I guess," she said, after a moment of thinking. "But it hasn't been serious. I mean not really serious, if you know what I mean."

Harry nodded, though he had no clue what she meant.

"And I like him," Penny went on, her mouth still inches from his. "You know, but I don't know…you know?"

"I know," Harry said, leaning back a little so he wasn't speaking directly into Penny's mouth. "There's a girl back home I really like, but she's off playing — er, sports, with a team in Wales."

"Wales," Penny repeated, trying to think. "Is that in Northern California?"

Harry smiled. "No, it's in Britain."

Penny looked impressed. "Oh, _that's_ what your accent is! I was thinking you were from New York or someplace back east!" She leaned forward more, still smiling at him. "You know, I don't think I've ever kissed a guy from England before…"

"Really?" Harry still kept leaning back, wondering how he was going to get out of this. Or if he really wanted to… Ginny would never know… He stopped pulling back, and their lips touched.

Penny kissed him for several seconds, then leaned back for a moment, giggling. "What's funny?" Harry asked, wondering if he'd done something wrong.

"Oh, it's just — I can't believe it's not butter!" Penny leaned forward, kissing him again, harder this time. And Harry stopped resisting, closed his eyes and began enjoying the experience.

=ooo=

When Harry opened his eyes again, he and Penny were still on her couch, but they were both now lying back on it, with her half on top of him, her head nestled against his shoulder. They both still had their clothes on, Harry saw, though Penny's blouse looked a little disheveled. One of his arms was around her; the other was behind him, as if he were trying to push himself against her. He looked down at her sleeping face, remembering. She'd fallen asleep while they were kissing, and he'd considered levitating her into her bedroom so she could sleep there, but he'd barely slipped his wand out of his pocket before the wine had kicked in and he'd fallen asleep as well.

Penny stirred, then frowned and opened one eye very slowly, until she was looking into Harry's nearer eye. "Oh my god, not again!" she muttered, jerking free of his arms and sitting upright on the sofa. "_What the hell_ —" she started to say, loudly, then winced and continued in a much quieter voice. "What the hell happened last night?" she whispered.

"We fell asleep," Harry replied.

"Are you _sure_?" Penny looked at him disbelievingly.

"I'm sure," Harry looked indignant. "And what did you mean by 'not again'?" he asked. "We've never done this before."

"I mean, I've woke up with someone — oh, never mind," she said quickly. "You've got to leave, right away — what will Leonard think if he comes over and finds us like this?"

"What _should_ he think?" Harry snapped, standing up and stepping away from her. "He obviously didn't want me staying here, and after last night I can see why!"

Penny's expression turned cold. "What's that supposed to mean? I was doing you a favor, not letting Sheldon throw you out!"

"Thanks, but I can take care of myself!" Harry retorted.

"Sure you can, that's why you were in their apartment snarfing down their food!"

"So were you!" Harry said angrily. _Why was he acting like this_? He was as guilty as Penny was — he'd drunk her wine, he had let her kiss him. He needed to get out of here before he got so angry something weird happened. "I'm going to leave, he said, turning toward the door.

"Fine!" Penny said, loudly. She glanced at the place where he'd been sitting o the sofa. "And take this stupid wand thing with you!" She picked up the wand that Harry dropped, starting to throw it at him.

The wand shot golden sparks out of the tip. "Whoa! Holy crap!" Penny said, dropping the wand like a hot potato. "What the hell was _that_?" she shouted.

Harry spun back around. "What happened?" he asked, seeing his wand on the floor.

"It shot _sparks_ at me!" Penny. "What kind of stupid trick is that?"

"Sparks?" Harry stared at the wand, which was still emitting gold sparkles from the tip. "What did you do?"

"I just picked it up!" Penny declared. "I didn't do anything else, I swear!"

Harry stared at her for several seconds, thinking furiously to himself. "Pick it up again," he said, finally.

"No way!" Penny said emphatically. "I'm not touching that thing again!"

"Please," Harry said. She looked at him with a startled expression, as if that were the last thing she expected him to say, then nodded and picked up the wand again. "Now give it a shake," he said, suddenly feeling like a very old wandmaker.

"What the hell is that going to — oh yikes!" Penny dropped the wand again as it shot more sparks from the tip. "James," she said a low, deadly voice. "What kind of stupid joke are you trying to pull —"

"Not joking," Harry said, finally convinced. "Penny, you're a witch."

"_What_ did you call me?" Penny sounded outraged. "Well, _you're_ a jerk —"

"I don't mean it like that!" Harry hastily tried to explain. "I mean you — it's complicated — you have…" Harry groped for a way to explain this to her. "Did you ever read any of the Harry Potter books?"

Penny looked at him like he was crazy. "_No_," she said, emphatically. Then, "Well, I did see one of the movies with Leonard once, when we were dating." She thought for a moment. "He called it 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.'"

"Oh yeah," Harry nodded. "Sixth year."

"How can you say I'm a witch?" Penny asked skeptically. "What are you supposed to be, some kind of wizard?"

"Yeah," Harry said, matter-of-factly. "I'm really Harry Potter."

Penny looked stunned. "No way!" she shook her head.

"Yes way," Harry said. "I'll show you." He held out his hand, hoping he could pull off what he was about to try. He'd practiced it enough, he reminded himself. _Accio_, he thought, staring at his wand. The wand vibrated, then wiggled, then leapt into the air and into his hand.

"Holy crap," Penny blinked, looking at the wand that had just _jumped off the ground_ on its own and into James' hand. "Okay," she said, still not convinced. "I've seen Howard do some pretty complicated magic tricks. How do I know that wasn't just something like that?"

Harry sighed. "Okay. Tell me if you think _this_ is a trick?" he asked, then swished and flicked his wand at her. "_Wingardium leviosa_," he said, and Penny rose several inches into the air.

Penny dangled there for several seconds, wiggling her feet and toes to convince herself that she really wasn't touching the ground any more, then looked up at Harry. "Okay," she said in a small, very scared voice. "Put me down now, please."

Harry lowered her to the ground then ended the spell. "It's still a long story," he told her. "But I was brought here and told I had to figure out which one of you was magical without using my wand. But I didn't have enough time last night, and you, Amy and Bernadette had left the apartment. Wizards in stressful or emotional situations sometimes perform accidental magic. I thought I was going to have to get Amy and Bernadette back into the apartment to see if anything like that happened while you were out."

Penny was staring at her hands. "So, what does this _mean_?" she asked, looking up at Harry. "What am I supposed to do now? I don't know how to be a witch! I can be a _bitch_ sometimes, but —"

Harry hadn't thought this far ahead. "I don't know," he admitted. "I guess you find a school that teaches magic and learn how."

"And how do I do that?" Penny wanted to know. "I have no idea how to do that! Do _you_?"

"Well, I know of a few," Harry said, thinking. "But they're in Britain or Europe. I think there's one in Massachesetts — the Salem Institute…" he stopped talking, because Penny was looking more scared the longer he spoke.

"And what about my friends?" Penny cried, gesturing toward Leonard's apartment across the hall. "What am I supposed to tell _them_ now?"

"You can't tell them _anything_," Harry explained to her. "Muggles aren't supposed to know about wizards, not unless they're a member of your family or they have a good reason to know."

"But they _are_ my family!" Penny protested. "I mean, they've helped me a lot these past five years! I don't know what I'd do without them."

"You'll make new friends," Harry tried to reassure her. "And you can still be friends with everyone you know now — you just can't tell them what you really are."

"Oh trust me," Penny shook her head emphatically. "I will eventually tell one of them what's going on with me! Sheldon thinks _he_ can't keep a secret, but I'm just as bad as he is!" She sat down heavily on the sofa. "I don't know what I'm going to do now." Her face scrunched up and she began to cry. "I wish this had never happened to me," she sobbed.

Harry watched her for several moments. When Hagrid told him he was a wizard, he thought it was the best thing in the world that could have happened to him. Or to _anyone_. He'd never considered the idea that not everyone would _want_ to be a wizard. Well, there was something he could do to fix the mess he'd created. Harry slowly raised his wand toward Penny and quietly said, "_Obliviate_."

Penny swayed slightly when the spell hit her. At that same moment there was a banging on the door. Harry immediately pulled his Invisibility Cloak out of his mokeskin pouch and threw it over himself, then moved to a corner of the apartment, out of the main walkways.

"Penny? James?" Leonard's voice came from the other side of the door. "Is someone crying in there? Please let me in!"

Leonard continued to knock frantically on the door until Penny suddenly shook her head, as if coming out of a daze, then stood and opened the door. "Oh hi, Leonard," she said, standing in the doorway. "What's up?"

"Are you okay?" Leonard was trying to see around her. "Is James in there?"

"Who?" Penny asked, looking confused.

Leonard stepped around her into the apartment, looking around for any sign of James. He was afraid to ask where the guy was — he could only be in one of two places: the bathroom or the bedroom. "James, the guy I invited for dinner last night. Isn't he here…?"

"Leonard, I don't know _who_ you're talking about," Penny said, shrugging. "I don't remember anyone named James at dinner last night." She got a distracted look on her face. "In fact, I don't remember much of anything after Amy, Bernadette and I came back to my apartment. Now who's James?"

"I'm not sure myself," Leonard said, scratching his head perplexedly. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or alarmed by her inability to remember the guy, or where he'd gone. But, there was the old saying about not looking gift horses in the mouth. "Anyway, um, do you feel like going out for breakfast with me?"

"Sure," she said, beaming at him. The two of them exited the apartment. After a moment Harry peeked out from under his Cloak. He hoped that would solve Penny's problem — after all, you can't miss what you never knew you had.

"Fascinating," a voice came from the other room, and Sheldon Cooper stepped out into the apartment living area. "That was a very nice thing you did for Penny, Harry."

"Sheldon," Harry said, alarmed for a moment that the Muggle had seen him performing magic. Earlier, when they were talking about Sheldon being a wizard, Harry could claim he was just playing along with Sheldon's fantasy about him being Harry Potter. But now —

Sheldon was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Technically, though, you did use your wand, albeit unintentionally, to figure out Penny was a witch. I'm not sure if that should count against you or not."

It finally dawned on Harry. "You're not Sheldon, are you," he said, getting angry. "You're _him_."

Sheldon smiled, a very unnatural expression for that face. "Of course I'm _him_," he agreed. "Sheldon Cooper may be a very intelligent theoretical physicist, but sometimes he doesn't have the sense Satan gave a goose."

Harry's wand came up lightning fast and a red Stunner exploded from the tip, toward Cooper's form. Before it reached him, though, it glanced off an invisible shield, deflecting into a wall and leaving a black scorch mark.

"Please," Cooper said. "I _did_ come prepared for an attack, Harry — you're pretty consistent that way, especially when you think you have an advantage, like holding your own wand.

"It's about time for what I expect will be your final mission," Harry's captor went on. "But before we embark on that adventure, do you have any questions for me?"

Harry was glaring at the man with extreme loathing, but he did pause a moment at that — there was something he thought he'd figured out, earlier. "This place," he said. "What did you _do_ here? It's — well, it's _wrong_, somehow. How did you come up with the Harry Potter books I saw, and why do these people think I'm just a character in them?"

"Are you a wizard or not, Harry?" the ersatz Cooper asked him, chuckling. "How do you think someone like me might have accomplished such a thing?"

Harry wanted answers, not to be asked more questions, but — "It wouldn't be hard to write about my life — I've already had offers to write my biography, but just the little bit I read had me thinking and feeling things I really remember doing! No one could do that without getting into my head. I'd have to guess you asked me questions under Veritaserum and then Obliviated me afterward."

"Bzzzzzt! Wrong answer, Harry," fake Cooper said. "Keep working on it, you may get it before the end of your next mission. If not, you fail the test."

"And what happens if I fail?" Harry asked, warily.

"It means you're of no further use to me," the Cooper clone shrugged.

"And what does _that_ mean?" Harry asked, his voice edgy.

The clone smiled. "Let's hope you don't have to find out. Now, off we go." Harry and his captor both vanished from Penny's apartment.


	6. The Doctor

**Harry Potter Versus**

**Chapter Six  
****The Doctor**

_Updated July 7, 2012_

=ooo=

"This doesn't make any sense."

Harry was sitting on the curb on Charing Cross Road, in front of a bookstore and a record shop, his head resting wearily on one knee. He was holding a letter he'd just finished reading, a letter that had prompted his muttered comment.

_Harry,_

_For this adventure you're on your own. Don't worry, help is coming (I think) but you'll have to work out what you need to do with whomever arrives. If you succeed, I'll see you shortly and we'll discuss what comes next._

_Your friend,_

_You-Know-Who_

_P.S., Whatever you do, don't take off the bracelet on your left wrist._

Harry glanced again at the thin metal bracelet he was wearing. He couldn't identify the metal but it didn't seem very heavy. As far as he could tell the metal was a solid unbroken band, too small to slip over his hand; he'd have a right good time trying to get it off unless he cut it or Vanished it.

Crowds of people were walking by on the sidewalk behind him; Harry could feel their eyes on his back, looking at him curiously or sometimes with derision. Some people apparently didn't think he should be sitting on the curb. But he needed to sit and think for a minute before he did anything.

When he'd reappeared after his last "mission," just minutes earlier, he'd found himself standing on the banks of the Thames, looking at Big Ben. Realizing he was back in London, Harry had immediately Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron in Charing Cross Road, to find someone there who could tell him how long he'd been gone. But when he tried to enter the pub, he found — nothing. There was no door or sign nestled between the two buildings where no Muggle seemed able to see it. There was not even a hint that anything had ever _been_ there, even though the Leaky Cauldron was nearly 500 years old! Harry had stood staring at the space between the two buildings for some time, ignoring the curious looks of passersby as he tried to figure out what was going on. In the end, though, he just sat down on the curb, trying to figure out what to do next.

How could the Leaky Cauldron be gone? Not just closed but _gone_, almost as if it had never existed at all? It didn't make any sense! You couldn't just erase centuries of history like like _that_, could you? It had been around longer than the Ministry of Magic itself, Harry knew, and the Ministry of Magic was the very first British Ministry formed, even though Muggles thought they had formed the British Ministry under the Treaty of Union in 1707.

And speaking of the Ministry… Harry stood suddenly and turned on his heel to Apparate, heedless of the people walking by him. He appeared a moment later in a deserted alleyway that was about fifty yards from the employee entrance to the Ministry. Harry looked around; he was standing next to a pair of fire doors, ones he recognized yet —

The doors he remembered were padlocked and heavily graffitied, but these doors were clean and shining, free of any markings, and there were no chains or padlocks to be seen. That seemed like a bad sign, Harry decided ominously, and walked out of the alley and down the sidewalk until he came to a pair of steps leading down into men and women's public toilets. What he found was not quite what he expected — a clean if drab, _empty_ men's facility. But men were at the basins washing their hands, and a few old men were standing or sitting against the walls, their hands out as they begged for change. Harry waved off an old man who pulled at his pants leg, asking for a spare pound or two, trying to recollect his thoughts and find his way into the Ministry.

When Voldemort controlled the Ministry between August 1997 and April 1998, the employees' entrance to the Ministry had been changed to use these public toilets. The stalls were enchanted so a special token, handed out to each Ministry employee at the end of the day, activated the spell on the toilet that would "flush" you into the Ministry through one of the Floo entrances.

When Voldemort was defeated, fortunately, they had done away with that flushing rubbish. Once in the stall, a wizard would just tap the top of the toilet three times with his wand, and it would disappear into the floor, a door would appear and you would step through and out of a fireplace in the Atrium.

At least, that's what Harry _hoped_ would happen, as he stood in a cramped stall staring at the toilet in front of him. He brought out his wand, took a deep breath, then tapped the toilet tank three times.

Nothing happened.

Harry tapped again, harder this time. Then _again_, almost slamming his wand down as his frustration and anger mounted. Still nothing. Harry turned and lurched out of the toilet, stepping in front of a man who had started to go into the adjacent stall. "Oi!" the man said, indignantly.

"That one's broken," Harry muttered, closing the door behind him. He tapped this toilet three times, with the same failure as before.

He stepped out and tried the next stall, but it was locked. "Sorry, mate," the man he'd stepped in front of earlier said sardonically. "I beat yeh to this one!"

Harry tried the rest of the stalls and was met each time with failure. Almost in a daze, he walked back outside and began wandering down the street the way he came, wand dangling loosely in his hand, until he stopped in front of the alleyway he'd Apparated into earlier. People were staring curiously at him as they passed, but Harry hardly noticed them.

_Where the bloody hell was everybody_? Harry thought, desperately. What kind of game was his captor playing, and how could he have made the Ministry and the Leaky Cauldron (and presumably Diagon Alley as well!) simply _disappear_?

A hand grabbed his arm, and Harry instinctively spun away, turning to confront whoever had taken hold of him. An old man had come up to him, and was now pointing frantically at his right hand, an expression of alarm on his old, weathered features. Harry recognized him as the man who'd asked him for a couple of pounds. "What are yeh doing with that out?" the old man hissed. "Put it away, _now_!"

Harry glanced down, realizing he was still holding his wand. He slid it into his back pocket. "What's wrong?" he asked the old man. "It's just a stick."

The old man gave him a scornful expression. "No, it ain't. Don't try to green me, boy, I know a —" his voice lowered to a whisper "— a _wand_ when I see one! Don't you have sense enough to keep it hidden in front of the Muggles?"

Harry grabbed the old man's arm. "_What_ did you say?"

"Yeh heard me!" the old man croaked. "Yeh've got ter keep that thing out of sight if'n yeh know what's good fer yeh!" He opened up the tattered coat he was wearing, revealing a similar wand in its inside pocket. "The coppers'll pinch yeh quicker'n yeh can say 'Annie Fanny' if'n they see yeh with one of these!"

Harry took the man by the arm and pulled him into the alleyway. The old man looked wary, but came without protest, until he and Harry were well away from the street. "Are you a wizard?" Harry asked him anxiously.

"Damn straight," the old man said. "'Pears ye are as well, though yeh don't seem to have sense enough to keep it ter yerself, boy! What were yeh tryin' to do down in that bog? Didn' make a lick of sense!"

"You saw all that?" Harry desperately hoped this fellow could clear up what was going on here. "Listen, I'm trying to find the Ministry of Magic."

"Are you daft?" the old man shook his head wearily. "There ain't been a Ministry a Magic fer near three hundred years, now! Yeh ought ter know that, boy!" The old man was staring at him strangely, now — he had evidently just noticed the lightning scar on Harry's forehead. "Did the Muggles mark yeh?"

"What?" Harry didn't understand. "What d'you mean?"

"Thet mark on yer forehead," the old man pointed. "What's it mean?"

Harry's hand went automatically to his scar. "Oh, that." He looked curiously at the old man. "You don't recognize it?"

"Why would I recognize it?" the old man snorted. "I ain't laid eyes on yeh before in meh entire life, boy!"

"You never heard of Harry Potter?" Harry pressed him. "The Boy-Who-Lived?" The old man shook his head, looking at Harry apprehensively.

Harry stood staring the old man. He was beginning to see things in that ancient, lined face that were familiar — the blue eyes, dulled with age but still fiercely blue. The long, crooked nose… "What's your name?" Harry suddenly asked.

"Meh name?" the old man looked confused for a moment. "It's been so long… ahh, it's — Al."

"What's your last name?" Harry asked, wondering if he could guess. "Is it — Dumbledore?"

The old man took a step away from him. "What? Do I know you, boy?"

"I know _you_," Harry said, suddenly confident. He couldn't believe it — Dumbledore was alive! "You were the headmaster of Hogwarts School —"

"Quiet!" the old man suddenly hissed. He stared at Harry in frank amazement. "How could yeh know that?" he muttered. "It's been gone since before yeh were born — and then, known only to a privileged few…"

"But I'm right, aren't I?" Harry demanded. "You _are_ Dumbledore!"

The old man put out a hand for silence. He looked around cautiously. "Aye," he said at last, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm Albus Dumbledore, himself. The old wizard lowered his voice even more. "Not the kind of name Muggles take very kindly to, which is why I go by Al, if yeh ketch my meanin'. And I take it yer supposed to be one Harry Potter, then?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded slowly, looking at the man in shock. "Do you know of a — a man called Voldemort?"

"Nay," Dumbledore shook his head slowly. "But then, yeh should know how scattered and few we wizards are these days."

"But I _don't_ know that!" Harry exclaimed, startling the old man, who looked around fearfully. He had to be careful, Harry realized — this could be the "help" that had been promised him, in the letter from his captor. "Sorry," Harry went on, more quietly, "but I was kidnapped from here just a few days ago, and things are completely different now than they were then!"

"Yeh were kidnapped?" Dumbledore suddenly looked much more alert. "Were they purists? What did they do wit' yeh? How'd yeh git away, then?"

_Purists_? "What do you mean, 'purists?'" Harry quickly asked. "Do you mean blood purists, like Death Eaters?"

"Death Eaters?" the old man shook his head. "I ne'er heard of it. Nay, these blood purists are Muggles who want us wizards exterminated like so many rats! Anyone caught by 'em are mostly ne'er seen again."

"So humans know about us?" Harry asked.

"Aye, that's always been the way of it," Dumbledore shrugged. "There was a great gatherin' o' wizards a long time ago who wanted our kind to go to ground, but it never came off. The Muggles in Britain and Europe finally found something to unite against — us — and since then bein' a wizard has been a hard life. I fear we'll not survive much longer, the way things are —"

A peculiar grinding sound made Dumbledore turn suddenly toward the back of the alley, an expression of alarm on his face. Harry turned too, trying to figure out what the noise meant, and gasped as he saw a light beginning to glow where thin air had been only moments earlier. It wasn't the sudden appearance of a person Apparating or a Portkey arrival. It was — something else.

The grinding continued, louder and louder, and the old man covered his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. Harry winced, silently agreeing that the noise was grating. But the noise finally abated, and Harry could just make out in the darkness of the alley a tall, boxlike object. Automatically he raised his wand and silently cast _Lumos_ to see it better.

"Careful!" Dumbledore put out a hand in warning. "Don't call attention to us!"

"We have to see it," Harry argued, holding his wand higher, "before we know whether to be afraid of it or not."

The old man snorted. "I hope yeh manage to get a bit older 'fore fool ideas like that get yeh killed. Well, go on, then, lesse what — hum…"

Harry glanced back at Dumbledore, who was staring pensively at what had appeared out of thin air. "What —? Did you see something?"

"Nay." But the old man was staring at the object with something like recognition. "But… this contraption looks a mite familiar."

Harry held up his lit wand to see better. The object was around seven feet tall or so, and it reminded Harry of the visitor's entrance at the Ministry, except it was painted blue and had a light on top of it. The words "Police Box" were also clearly visible, shining by their own light in the dark. "It's an old police call station," he said, recognizing it (Harry had finally studied a bit of history in the time since he became an Auror). "But why did it appear out of nowhere? And why _here_?" Even as he said this, however, Harry realized _this_ could be the help that had been promised him. Whatever it was.

"Maybe we should look inside?" Harry tentatively suggested, more to himself than his erstwhile professor.

"Are yeh serious?" Dumbledore shook his head unbelievingly. "Of course yeh are — I was forgettin' that yer young and stupid, aren't yeh?"

"I'll be careful," Harry said, irritated by that remark. "I've had Auror training, you know."

"What?" the old man looked him blankly. "What kind of aura —" He suddenly drew back. "Look out!" he cried out, pointing frantically at the box.

Harry instinctively stepped back. His eyes widened in surprise as the door to the box opened. A smiling man stuck his head out of the door. "Hello there!" he said pleasantly to Harry and Dumbledore, who only stared at him.

The man stepped out of the box. He was tall, with prominent eyes that reminded Harry of Luna Lovegood. There was a wide-brimmed fedora perched on the top of a mass of curly brown hair; the man was dressed in a long, dark coat and — something — wrapped around his neck. It looked like a scarf, but it was so ridiculously long that the man had it practically draped over himself several times, and it still hung down to his feet. "Can you tell me where I am?" the man asked, displaying a prominent set of teeth as he grinned at them.

"Where you _are_?" Harry boggled a bit at the man's cheerful ignorance. "Don't you know?"

The man looked around, then smiled at Harry again. "Well, at the moment I'd say I'm in a rather dark alleyway, but beyond that I'm afraid the old girl —" he fondly patted the side of the police box "— chose her own destination this time. Can you at least tell me what the year is?"

Harry boggled again. Speechless, he turned to Dumbledore. "It's 2000," the old man muttered, staring at the strange warily. "An' yer in London, which yer accent tells me yeh should be full well familiar with."

The man stared at him blankly for a moment, then nodded. "Ah, yes, British English, the London dialect. Quite. Well, may I have your names, then? May as well get off on the proper foot."

"Call me Al," Dumbledore said. "He's Harry," he shrugged his head in Harry's direction. "And you are —?"

The man tipped his fedora with a little bow. "I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor who?" Harry asked, without thinking.

The Doctor nodded happily. "Yes, indeed," he agreed.

"What?" Harry blurted, confused.

"No, 'who' is fine," the man said, looking around distractedly. "But just 'Doctor' will be sufficient, I think. London, is it? I haven't been back to Earth in some time now. I wonder if I have time for a show —"

"Wait a second!" Harry was frantically trying to catch up. "Are you _not from Earth_?" This was getting more and more fantastic by the moment!

"Oh." A sudden realization seemed to come over the man. "So sorry, my mistake," he said, tipping his hat once again and staring to move backwards toward the door of the booth. "I may have spoken out of turn. I'll just go back inside and —"

"Wait a minute!" Harry stepped forward and grabbed the Doctor's arm. "We need your help!"

"No we don't," Dumbledore spoke up. "Let 'im go, lad."

"_I_ need his help!" Harry snapped at the old wizard, then turned back to the Doctor, who was now halfway inside the police box, looking bemusedly at Harry's hand on his arm. "I was kidnapped from here about a week ago, by someone who forced me to go on a bunch of strange assignments." Harry reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out the letter he'd read earlier. "Here's the last message he left me." The Doctor took the letter and began reading it.

"When I got back here just a little while ago," Harry continued. "I found everything changed around and wrong."

"Wrong?" The Doctor looked intrigued. "Wrong how?"

Harry pointed at Dumbledore. "When I left, he was dead," Harry said. Dumbledore blinked, frowning. "He had been the headmaster of a school I attended, a school for — er, wizards," Harry said, uncomfortably. He wasn't sure if the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy held here, as there didn't seem to be a Ministry to enforce it. "You know — um, people who can do — um — magic."

But the Doctor seemed entirely unfazed by Harry's statement. "Wizards, eh?" he said. "I wondered where the lot of you had got off to, these three hundred years or so. Well, come along then," he motioned for Harry and Dumbledore to follow him inside the box. "Let's go sort this out."

Harry looked inside the door. His jaw dropped. A long corridor ran off into the distance, with doors along either side for as far as Harry could see. The Doctor stopped and motioned for him to follow. "Hurry along, now," he said, impatiently. "I haven't got all day!" He turned and strode away.

Harry looked back at Dumbledore, who seemed rather apprehensive about following. "Are you coming?" he asked.

The old man looked quite doubtful about doing that. Finally, however, he just shrugged. "I suppose I must," he said. "If only t' keep yeh from mucking things up even more." He stepped inside the TARDIS behind Harry.

The Doctor was nowhere to be seen. "Doctor?" Harry called. "Where are you?"

"In the control room," came the Doctor's voice, muffled by distance.

"Where's that?" Harry said, loudly. The corridor they were in seemed endless.

"Just keep coming, you'll find it," the Doctor's voice said, irritably.

Dumbledore was looking back and forth along the corridor. "He must be a wizard as well," he whispered to Harry. "To have this much room in such a small box."

"I don't think he's a wizard," Harry muttered. "But I hope he can help us figure out what happened to all of them."

"And then what?" Dumbledore asked. "You said I was _dead_, where yeh came from! D'yeh think I want to go _back_ to being dead, then?"

Harry looked at him. It was true, he didn't really want Dumbledore dead again. But he had to figure out what had happened here… "We need to know what happened before we know what to do next," he argued. "Let's just find the Doctor."

They came at last to an open door. Peering inside, they saw the Doctor standing next to a strange table of some kind, with its surfaces tilted upward and dials and other controls on them. "Ah, there you are!" the Doctor beamed at them; his annoyance at their tardiness seemed to have vanished. "Come over here, Harry, if you please," he said, gesturing to him. Harry complied, looking around curiously, while Dumbledore warily kept his distance.

"Hold this," the Doctor handed Harry a small cylinder, attached by a wire to the weird table they were standing next to.

"What is it?" Harry asked, looking at the device closely. It seemed to be nothing but a crystal rod with metal caps on either end and a wire poking out of it.

"It's a quantum phase discriminator," the Doctor said distractedly, fiddling with several knobs on the table. "It will measure your individual phase relation with the universe."

Harry nodded. He had no idea what any of that meant.

The Doctor was staring at a computer screen. "There we are," he said, pointing to a number that had just appeared. "You have the same quantum signature as this timeline, but are 0.0325 percent out of phase with it."

"Okay," Harry said, blankly. "That means what, exactly?"

"It means —" the Doctor paused for a moment. "Well, perhaps I should explain first that the disassociation you're experiencing with your surroundings can be symptomatic of a chronal relation paradox, which means that you're in a reality different than the one you originated in, but which originated from your reality at some point in the past."

"Um —" Harry began.

"It could also be symptomatic of a schizophrenic break," the Doctor added, parenthetically, "but you're not exhibiting any other symptoms, so I believe my initial diagnosis is correct. Also confirmed by the phase difference, by the way."

"Um —" Harry tried again.

"My prognosis, therefore, is for us to determine the fission point of the timeline, correct it, and see you safely back to your point of origin," the Doctor finished, beaming happily at Harry. "What do you say to that, my lad?"

"Um," Harry said. "I guess so."

"An' what'll happen to _this_ timeline, then?" Dumbledore finally spoke up.

"Quite simple, old chap," the Doctor answered. "It will have never occurred; thus, you will have never had the opportunity to ask that question in the first place."

"So I'll become nonexistent then?" Dumbledore looked upset by that. "D'yeh think I _want_ that?"

"You won't become nonexistent!" Harry pointed out, earnestly. "You'll become the Dumbledore that _I_ remember! He was the greatest wizard in the world! He was Chief Wizard of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards! He was the best Headmaster Hogwarts ever had!"

"And he's _dead_, too, isn't he?" Dumbledore snapped, angrily.

"Yes, he's dead now," Harry agreed, quietly. "But he died protecting me and protecting the students of Hogwarts. That was always the most important thing to him, the lives and protection of others. I suppose that's not what's important to _you_, sir."

Dumbledore blanched, looking stung by Harry's words. "It _is_ important to me," he insisted. "I had to close Hogwarts for the protection of my students, because the Muggles were too close to finding our hidden location. It pained me, for so many children have never had the benefit of a magical education because of it." The old man turned away, sighing with regret. "I hope yer right, Harry Potter, and that the man yeh knew was a better one than I am." He turned to the Doctor. "How d'we find out what changed history to bring us to here? That's what yer saying happened, innit?"

"Yes, indeed," the Doctor nodded. "You've a quick mind, Al!" He turned back to his strange table and began making adjustments. "Do you think we can do this, old girl?" he asked, seemingly to the ship itself. "Ah yes, I agree! We'll give that a try, then!" He handed a similar cylinder to Dumbledore, who took it gingerly and held it as if it might explode.

"What we're going to do," the Doctor explained, "is to run a differential phase discrimination program, comparing your quantum makeup —" pointing to Harry "— with yours —" pointing at Dumbledore, "and see how long they've been divergent. Quite simple, really." The Doctor busied himself with the table once more. A faint humming began to sound throughout the room, increasing in pitch and intensity until it was a shrill whine. Harry winced, covering one of his ears with one hand, wishing the other one was free.

The cylinders began to vibrate in Harry and Dumbledore's hands. "What's this? What's _this_?" Dumbledore asked, anxiously, as the vibrations became more and more pronounced. He looked as if he might throw the cylinder from him.

"Don't let go!" the Doctor warned. "We're almost there!"

The whine and vibration seemed to top out, then suddenly stopped. "Got it!" the Doctor crowed, pointing to his screen. "The divergence occurred 310 years ago, plus or minus 3 years!"

Harry did a quick mental calculation. "Three hundred and ten years ago, plus or minus three. That's from… 1687 to 1693," he said. "Can you think of anything that happened during those years?" he asked Dumbledore.

"History ain't my long suit," Dumbledore muttered, trying to think. "Lesse… in… 1691, I think, there was a delegation from the Ministry for Magic to the Muggle King and Queen, requesting that they put a stop t' the persecution of wizardkind, and the kidnappings an' ransom demands of Muggles wantin' magic done for them."

"I remember reading about that," Harry agreed. "They didn't get any help, so there was a big meeting the year afterward with the International Confederation of Wizards, they decided to make the entire Wizard world a secret. You mentioned that earlier."

"They _tried_," Dumbledore disagreed. "Bunch of dunderheads couldn't agree on what ter do! They met for months, trying to sort out how to handle things, but when the time came for Quidditch World Cup tryouts, everyone skulkered back to their home countries, agreein' t' come back afterwards an' work things out. But they never got the chance — the Ministry headquarters in London was invaded and destroyed on the orders of several powerful Dutch merchants, possibly under the Muggle King's sanction. The Dutch had squashed the Ministry for Magic in their own county in 1689, the same year William and Mary became coregents in England. It seems likely the whole affair was planned from the get-go."

Harry looked horrified. "The Ministry was destroyed because the Confederation of Wizards _broke session for Quidditch_?"

"Aye," Dumbledore said, grimly. "That's the truth of it."

"Very good!" the Doctor said, grinning broadly. "That looks like the place to start, then!"

"And how d'yeh propose to do that?" Dumbledore demanded. "Even if we _had_ a Time Turner, it couldn't take us three hundred years into the past!"

"Well, we have the old girl here," the Doctor spread his arms to indicate the TARDIS itself. "I'm sure she can get us to 1692 quite handily."

Harry looked around the control room. "This is a time machine, too?"

"Oh, yes," the Doctor said, quite matter-of-factly. "Didn't I explain that earlier? No? Well, no matter — we can be on our way right now, if you like."

Harry and Dumbledore looked at each. They both shrugged.

=ooo=

When the grinding noise finally stopped, Harry and Dumbledore each uncovered their ears and looked around. The control room was still the same as it had been before the Doctor began dashing about, making various adjustments and the grinding rose in volume. "Here we are, then!" the Doctor said cheerfully. "July 31st, 1692, the day before Quidditch world trials began in England, Ireland and Wales, according to our friend Al here."

Harry could barely believe that they were now over three hundred years in the past. "I don't feel any different," he said to the Doctor.

"And you shouldn't," the Doctor agreed, with a toothy grin that tended to unnerve Harry. "Inside the TARDIS we're protected from the effects of the time vortex — if we weren't, the two of you would undoubtedly be dead by now, torn to pieces by the intensity of time travel."

"At least we're here," Dumbledore said. "But now we've got to find where the Confederation is meeting and convince them to stay in session until they agree on how they should handle the details of the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy."

"Let's get started then," the Doctor beamed, and led the way down the corridor to the doorway that led out of the TARDIS. "After you," he gestured for Harry and Dumbledore to lead the way.

Harry stepped outside and looked around. "Wow," he said. "Quite a difference." They were standing several feet from a small, cobblestone road dotted by a few small, rude houses; shacks would have been a better description. There were very few tall buildings in evidence; Big Ben was gone from the skyline, assuming they were close enough to see it.

Dumbledore was staring as well, equally mesmerized by the changes to the city that three hundred years of time travel had wrought. The Doctor stepped out beside him, locking the door behind him, then turned and took a deep, bracing breath. "Ah, smell that!" He enthused. "London hasn't smelt like that in three hundred years!"

Harry took a breath. He could smell burning coal, rotting food, raw sewage, the stink of body odor from hundreds (if not thousands) of unwashed humans. "Yeah, interesting," he said, trying not to hold his nose. "But we need to —"

"Well, what 'ave we 'ere?" another voice suddenly spoke. Looking at the trio from the edge of the cobblestone road was a man, staring at them at them rather critically. "Did th' three o'ye come out of that bitty shed?" He strode toward them. Harry saw he was wearing a dark waistcoat, pants and boots, and wore a long, slender sword at his side. He stopped in front of the Doctor, who had moved forward upon seeing the man. "Are ye deaf then, or merely addled?"

"Neither," the Doctor replied pleasantly. "But perhaps you could help us—we're looking for a gathering of wizards —"

Both Harry and Dumbledore started forward, trying to stop the Doctor from speaking, but the damage had been done. "Are ye wizards, then?" the man asked, smiling broadly. "I've been meanin' to talk to one of ye blokes for some time now, and now's as good a time as any —"

With lightning speed the man reached inside his waistcoat and brought out a dagger, stepping forward and spinning the Doctor around as he pulled one of his arms behind him, locking it in place as the dagger went to the Doctor's throat.

"Now," he said, looking at Harry and Dumbledore, "take out yer wands and throw 'em on the ground." He hitched the blade against the Doctor's throat. "Or I give yer friend 'ere a very close shave."

"Do what he says, Harry," Dumbledore said. "We can't let our friend be hurt."

Harry stared at Dumbledore a moment, but took out his wand and let it fall to the ground, then raised his hands in front of himself. He waited to see what Dumbledore would do.

"Come on, ye old berk," the man snarled at him. "Drop yers as well!"

"Yes," Dumbledore said, taking it out slowly, "It's an old one, though — it will probably break if I drop it." He held it gingerly, as if it really might break.

"Well, be careful, then," the man grinned. "Each of those will fetch a 'alf-sovereign at the wizards' fair, now that their wandmaker 'as run off."

Dumbledore leaned over slowly, lowering the wand toward the ground. "This may not be worth much," he said. "It has an _Imperio_ —!"

Both the Doctor and the man behind him suddenly smiled vacantly. "Drop the knife," Dumbledore said, curtly. The man let go of his dagger.

Harry looked stunned. "Did you just _Imperius_ him?"

"Yes," Dumbledore's expression was hard. "I don't like Muggles who threaten wizards."

"But —" Harry was almost speechless. "The Imperius Curse is an Unforgivable —"

"A what?" Dumbledore frowned. "The Imperius is our best defense against Muggles who try to use us for their own gain!" He pointed at the Doctor. "You — come over here next to me."

"I was wondering when you were going to try to order me around," the Doctor said, cheerfully. He didn't move.

"Are you not affected by my spell?" Dumbledore looked surprised.

"I did feel a minor compulsion to obey," the Doctor admitted. "But we Time Lords are not so easily enthralled." He then walked over and stood next to Harry, observing their erstwhile assailant. "Interesting — this human was going to steal your wands and sell them to other wizards, probably on the equivalent of the black market here."

"He won't be doing that now," Dumbledore said, grimly. "What do you know about wizards?" he demanded of the Imperiused man.

"They're the devil's own spawn," the man said, his face screwing up in disgust as he spoke. "They say their dark arts come naturally, but everyone knows they traffic with Satan and his demons! Even now they are gathered together in their coven-house, plotting who-knows-what agin us regular folk!"

"What would you have done with them?" Dumbledore asked.

"They should all be killed, burned to ash and left unburied!" the man said, emotion reddening his face. "The King and Queen, God save them, should not suffer a witch to live, as the Good Book says!"

"Tell us where this 'coven-house' is," Dumbledore ordered.

"The devil-worshippers conduct their sordid affairs barely a mile from the King and Queen's palace!" the man said, shaking his head in shame. "The King, God save 'im, seems to fear the wretches, though they are not so powerful when relieved of their devil-sticks! They should —" The man suddenly fell over, unconscious, as Dumbledore cast a sleep spell on him.

"Enough of that," he muttered, looking at Harry and the Doctor. "I know where they are — it is the legendary gathering place of the International Wizards' Court, of the Council of Wizards from the days of Merlin himself."

"That would be where the Ministry was — or would have been — in present day," Harry surmised. "We need to get there as soon as possible."

"It's a few miles from here," Dumbledore said. "We can be there in a half-hour if we start now."

"No," Harry said. "We need to get there faster than that." He took hold of both Dumbledore and the Doctor's arms. "Sorry if this is uncomfortable —" Harry turned on his heel, and the three of them plunged into a constrictive, suffocating darkness that seemed to drag on and on, even for the short distance they were Apparating, until —

They were suddenly standing in another cobblestone street, in front of an old building of dark stone. Dumbledore bent forward, retching, and the Doctor looked quite discomfited.

"My word!" the Doctor exclaimed, his eyes goggling at he looked at Harry in utter surprise. "I had heard of that type of travel, but never experienced it before today. It's certainly an interesting way to get around!"

Dumbledore stood up, cleared his throat and spit to clear the taste of vomit from his mouth. "I had no idea anyone could still do that, lad," he told Harry, admiringly. "I thought Apparition a lost art."

"It's pretty common for wizards, where I come from," Harry said, though his attention was on the building in front of them. "This was as close as I could get," he said. "There's an anti-Apparition jinx on the building itself, just like there is in my day."

Harry walked up the steps to the large oaken door of the building, Dumbledore and the Doctor following him. Harry put his hand lightly on the door, feeling for magic. He had been doing this a lot in the past two years he'd been an Auror, having learned it from Dumbledore's example. You could tell a lot from feeling the magic inside objects.

Strangely, there was not very much magic in this door, which surprised Harry; he had expected the meeting-place of the Council of Wizards to be better guarded. He could open it easily with his wand. But, the sense of protocol that had been impressed in him during his years at Hogwarts and his time as an Auror overrode that impulsive thought. Harry knocked on the door.

"We are in session," a voice inside answered moments later. "No one may enter."

"We're wizards," Harry said. "We're here to address the Council."

"The Council is preparing to adjourn for the day," the voice said. "Come back tomorrow."

"If the Council adjourns today," Harry said, forcefully. "It will never meet again! Let us in! Now!"

There was silence from the other side; it went on so long Harry thought the person must have left. He was preparing to force the door open when there were a series of _clacks_ as bolts were thrown back and the door slowly creaked open.

A thin, gray-bearded wizard in purple robes and a wizard's cap peered out from behind the door. "How do you know this?" the old wizard demanded. "Are you here on behalf of the King and Queen?"

"We're here on behalf of all the wizards who want the Council to make them safer than they are now," Harry declared, pushing open the door and stepping inside the building. The Doctor and Dumbledore followed hard on his heels. "They must reach agreement the secrecy statute before they leave today."

The old wizard started apprehensively at Harry's remark, but shook his head. "There is nothing of that sort before the Council!" he declared.

"There is," Dumbledore disagreed. "We are here to see to its passing."

"We wish to address the Council," Harry told the old graybeard. "Announce us."

The old wizard hesitated, then nodded and walked across the entrance hall to a large pair of ornate doors, which opened at his approach. As the door opened a cacophony of voices became much louder; there was shouting and jeers coming from the room beyond.

"A vote! A vote!" voices were shouting, while other voices called for an adjournment due to the lateness of the day. _It was barely mid-afternoon_, Harry thought. _Are they really _that_ anxious to go home and watch Quidditch_?

Harry could see just enough of the room to recognize it as the courtroom his hearing had been in, five years ago when he was accused, ironically, of violating the very Statute he was here to make sure was passed. The benches of dark stone were filled with wizards and witches in many different colors and styles of clothing, all talking either with each other or shouting across the chamber. With all the discord and shouting going on, Harry was surprised they had made any progress at all.

The old wizard stood silent for some time as voices resounding through the chamber continued to call for either a vote or adjournment. Harry, impatient, was ready to step forward and cast a Silencing Charm on the entire chamber until there was call for order and the voices died away. The old wizard cleared his throat noisily, then put his wand to his throat and spoke.

"There are three newcomers without," he spoke, his voice amplified so it rang throughout the chamber. "They wish to address the Council on the matter of the Statute of Secrecy."

"Out of order!" someone shouted. "We need no more opinions on the matter! Send them away!"

The old wizard started to turn away but Harry, who had strode forward to the chamber doors, stepped in front of him, wand in hand. "We will _not_ leave," he said firmly. "The Council _must_ hear us on this matter!"

"The Council does not recognize your right to speak," the wizard who had spoken earlier drawled imperiously. He was tall, with long white hair and a neatly-trimmed beard and cold, gray eyes that made Harry shiver just to look at them. He appeared to be the wizard in charge, and he stood commandingly at the very center of the front row, the same spot where Cornelius Fudge had confront Harry, five years earlier. "Remove yourselves from our Chamber."

"Wait," another voice interrupted. "Chairman de Mafoi, some of the Council members do with to hear these men!"

Harry looked at the chairmen with sudden interest, the name "de Mafoi" having caught his attention. Was this man an ancestor of Draco Malfoy?

"Be that as it may, Monsieur Black," de Mafoi sneered, "your motion requires a second." He glared around the chamber. "Do any of you second Black's motion to hear these interloper?" His attitude suggested that such a second would not be prudent.

"I second it," a white-haired wizard sitting a few rows behind Black said, quietly, and Harry heard Dumbledore gasp softly.

He looked back at the old wizard, who leaned forward and whispered, "he is my great, great, great-grandfather, Abelyard Dumbledore."

De Mafoi did not look pleased by the seconding of Black's motion, but said only, "A show of hands, then. Those who favor the motion —" a number of hands rose into the air, some quickly, others quite tentative. Harry noted a clerk off to one side counting the hands. "Those opposed —"

Many hands went up immediately. This de Mafoi obviously carried some power, Harry thought. The clerk counted these hands as well, then began writing laboriously on the parchment in front of him.

"What is the count?" de Mafoi demanded, impatiently. It was close, Harry knew, from the quick count he'd done while hands were raised.

The clerk stood up, looking nervous. "The count is 173 votes in favor of the motion, 173 votes against," he said, not daring to look at de Mafoi.

"A tie!" Black cried, unhappily

"Quite," de Mafoi said, gloating. "And as Chairman, in the case of ties, I cast the deciding vote. I vote —"

"A point of order," the Doctor spoke up suddenly. "I would like to cast my vote." Harry and Dumbledore looked at each other in surprise. _What was the Doctor doing_?

"You are not a member of this Council," de Mafoi snorted. "You have no standing here!"

"_Au contraire_," the Doctor grinned toothily, stepping forward to hand a parchment envelope (produced suddenly from a coat pocket) to the clerk. "I am the great wizard Qui Quae Quod, representing the Xinjiang region of China. You will find my papers are all in order as a duly-authorized representative of the Qing Dynasty to the International Wizards' Council."

De Mafoi stared balefully as the clerk poured over the volume of documents the envelope disgorged. "They — they all appear to be in order," he said at last, timidly. "The seal is genuine."

"In any case, you are late," de Mafoi averred. "This meeting began over a month ago! You should have been here on the first day of meetings!"

"Does that also apply to _you_, Chairman?" Black spoke up, fiercely. "These meetings were convened a week before _you_ appeared and took over the Chairman's role. From me, I might add. If we throw out Mr. Qui's vote we must throw out yours as well, on the same basis."

"That was different," de Mafoi declared, but other voices joined with Black in calling for either his removal as Chairman or allowing the Doctor to cast his vote. Harry and Dumbledore watched in mute amazement as the Chairman was forced to allow the new vote.

"Jolly good!" the Doctor beamed, then winked at Harry. "I vote in favor of the motion."

"The motion is carried, 174 votes for and 173 against," the clerk announced.

"Well, that's the first part," Dumbledore muttered in Harry's ear. "Now we've got the right to _talk_ to these blokes."

=ooo=

The "right" to remain at the Council meeting turned into a marathon of speeches, counter-speeches and impassioned debates as the Doctor, Harry and Dumbledore each argued with de Mafoi and other Council members on the finer points of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. De Mafoi and other European council members were in favor of a strong Confederation of Wizards, one that controlled all other Wizarding Ministries across the world, while Black, of the British Ministry and his fellow representatives favored autonomy for the Ministries.

Over the course of the next three days, Harry, Dumbledore and the Doctor cajoled, browbeat, implored and exhorted the Council to finalize the details of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, and to establish the Wizards' Council, renamed the International Confederation of Wizards, as its overseeing organization, committed to maintaining standards for all Wizarding Ministries across Europe, Asia and Africa and for enforcing sanctions when infractions and violations repeatedly occurred.

"This meeting is — at last — adjourned," Chairman de Mafoi gratefully announced on 4 August 1692, a full four days after Quidditch World Cup elimination games had begun in England, France, Germany and Italy. By agreement of the newly-formed Confederation members, the British Ministry building had been placed under the Fidelius Charm, with Ministry member Black as its Secret Keeper _pro tem_. The Council member left the building in ones and twos, Apparating away as they stepped onto the doorstep just outside the front door. At the end Black was left alone with Harry, Dumbledore and the Doctor.

"I truly appreciate your coming at the last moment," Black gratefully told the three men as they stood inside the Ministry's entrance hall. "I shudder to think what would have happened if de Mafoi had adjourned the council before we passed the Statute.

"As do I," Harry said, feelingly. He really hoped they'd been able to rectify whatever had happened to cause the past to be changed. He and Black shook hands. "I hope you'll be able to get the Statute implemented and in place soon."

"We will," Black said, confidently. "We will have to if we're going to make Britain safe for wizards once again. Farewell," he waved as Harry, Dumbledore and the Doctor stepped outside the Ministry doors and Harry took the other two men's arms and they vanished.

Back at the TARDIS, the Doctor unlocked the door while Dumbledore finished coughing after Apparition travel. "Quite fascinating!" the Doctor was saying enthusiastically. "I haven't had a good debate like that in years!"

"I just hope it worked," Harry muttered as the three of them entered the police box. "It's going to be very disappointing to go through that only to have things be the same back in 2000."

"Think optimistically, Harry my lad," the Doctor advised. "You were quite eloquent back there at times. Wasn't he, Al old chap?"

Dumbledore nodded. "He was quite impressive. As were you, Doctor. That appointment from China to the Council came in quite handy, I must say, although it seemed unusual for an Englishman to be appointed a member of the Qing Dynasty royal court."

"Oh, well, the Chinese appreciate someone who can argue with them in their own language," the Doctor grinned. They arrived at the control room. "Now then," the Doctor said, bustling about the room. "Let's see about getting the two of you back to London once again." He adjusted a number of dials and gauges on the inclined table. "And here — we — go!"

The peculiar grinding noise began increasing in intensity. Harry tried to ignore it; at least as a mode of travel the TARDIS was better than Apparition or a Portkey. An interminable time later the grinding finally stopped and the Doctor flipped a few switches. The control room became completely quiet; even the slight background hum that always seemed to be present disappeared. "Here we are," he said. "Time to see if we were successful."

Harry, who was looking at Dumbledore, didn't want to be pessimistic, but the man _was_ still here; hadn't the Doctor said if they were successful it would be as if he'd never existed? But Dumbledore, as if reading Harry's mind, said "I think if we _were_ successful, I would not be here."

"You know, your English has gotten better over past few days," Harry commented (not wanting to address the substance of Dumbledore's remark).

"Of course," the old wizard said, his blue eyes twinkling with the first merriment Harry had seen since meeting him. "My colloquialisms are merely a ruse to keep people ignorant of my level of education. An old, shabbily-dressed man that speaks grammatically correct English would be considered an anomaly."

"Fascinating," the Doctor commented. "But shall we see what we've come to see?" He led the way down the corridor to the police box doorway, then carefully opened it. "After you, gentlemen —" he said, turning to Harry, then corrected himself, "—I mean, after you, young Harry."

"What?" Harry looked around. Dumbledore was gone. "Where did he — Al? Al! Where are you?"

"I'm afraid he's gone, Harry," the Doctor laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I should think the TARDIS protected him from the changes to the timeline while he was safely inside it. Once I opened this door, however —"

"Oh," Harry sighed. "Well, that's good news, I suppose…" He stepped outside, looking around. The police box was sitting on the sidewalk on Charing Cross Road; across the street Harry could see Goslett Yard, and down the street a ways, the record shop and the bookstore that were the bookends for the Leaky Cauldron. "I don't see anything's different…" he said, slowly.

"Was it different before?" the Doctor asked, diffidently.

"Well, no, not until I tried to go into the Leaky Cauldron," Harry said, pointing in the direction of the pub.

"Then perhaps you should give that a whirl, eh?" the Doctor suggested, gesturing for Harry to lead the way.

Harry walked down the street until he was staring at the spot, between the record and book stores, where the Leaky Cauldron should be located. He took a deep breath. "Here we go," he said, exhaling gustily, and concentrated on the spot.

The grubby little pub came easily into view as Harry fixed his eyes on the spot where it should be. The Doctor was having a bit more trouble; his eyes kept sliding from the record shop right over to the book store. "I see it!" Harry said, excitedly.

"Wonderful," the Doctor said, peering at where Harry was pointing. "Well, then," he said, clapping his hands together. "I suppose we should say goodbye, then." He paused a moment. "Well, goodbye, Harry," the Doctor said, taking Harry's hand and shaking it. He turned and began to walk away.

"Er — do you want to go inside?" Harry asked after him. "I can take you, if you like."

"Quite all right, Harry," the Doctor said, over his shoulder as he continued on his way. "I've seen the inside of more than a few pubs."

Harry watched him disappear into the police box, which then disappeared with its peculiar grinding noise. From this distance it wasn't that bad, Harry thought. He then turned his attention back to the Leaky Cauldron, quickly entering before it decided to disappear once again.

He was barely inside before two bodies slammed into him. "Harry! Oh my God Harry!" Hermione was shrieking into his ear. "Where in the world have you been? We've been worried _sick_ about you!"

Ron was there, too, wrapping an arm around Harry's shoulder. "She was, too," he told Harry solicitously. "I just figured you were off on a special assignment for the Ministry or something."

"You were just as worried as I was, Ron!" Hermione said, giving him a stern look worthy of their old Head of House, Minerva McGonagall. "It's been nearly a week now, Harry! Where _were_ you?"

"It's going to be a bit hard to explain," Harry said, not sure he wanted to get into the story right then — he was tired from all the time he'd spent at the Council meeting trying to get the Secrecy Statute hammered out. Even though that had been over three hundred years ago…

"Well, you'd better be ready to explain to the Head," Ron pointed out. "He's pretty upset that you didn't let him know you'd be gone —"

"I didn't know I was _going_ to be —" Harry cut himself off. "Okay, I'll report in right now. Is he at the Ministry, do you know?"

"When is he not?" Ron shrugged. "D'you want me to go with?"

"No, I'll go," Harry said, standing. "Will you two be here when I get back?"

"We'll be here," Hermione smiled. "We want to hear what happened, Harry."

Harry nodded. He was looking forward to hearing the entire story itself, especially about how he was going to tell it. He went over to the pub's fireplace, tossed a Knut borrowed from Ron into the tip bowl, and took a pinch of Floo powder and tossed it into the fireplace, which immediately erupted in green flames. Stepping into the flames, Harry said "Ministry of Magic!" and instantly began to spin as the magical flames began to transport him to the Ministry.

He stepped out into the Atrium, then turned and walked toward the far end of the hall, past the reinstated fountain that now showed a wizard and witch with a centaur, a goblin and a house-elf standing _with_ them instead of staring up adoringly _at_ them, then through the golden gates to the lifts. He took the nearest lift to Level Two, where the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was located, including the Head's office. Harry steeled himself and knocked softly on the door, wondering how his explanation was going to sound to Robards.

"Come in," Robards' deep voice said, and Harry stepped inside.

"Sir," he said, coming to attention. "Auror Potter reporting in per your request."

Robards pointed at a chair. "Have a seat, Potter." After Harry sat down, Robards sat regarding him with an inscrutable expression. Several seconds went by, and Harry began to wonder what the Head was thinking. How much trouble was he in? Was he about to be sacked? More than anything, Harry hoped that wasn't about to happen.

"So," Robards said at last. "What did you think about that last assignment?"

_What_? "Excuse me?" Harry asked. A horrible suspicion had popped into his head. "Oh, no — you're not —"

"I'm afraid so, Harry," Robards grinned at him. "And congratulations! You did a superb job of restoring your timeline. I'm happy to say you passed the test. And you can take that silly bracelet off now."

Harry glanced at his wrist; he'd forgotten all about the thin metal bracelet he'd been wearing for the past several days. He took out his wand, briefly considering whether to turn it on the Head, then simply tapped the bracelet, wordlessly incanting _Evanesco_ to Vanish it. "What was this thing for, anyway?"

"Oh, it just kept you from vanishing when the timeline was altered," Robards said, airily. "Otherwise you'd never have been able to go back and try to fix things in the first place."

Harry shook his head, confused. "How did the timeline get _altered_ 'in the first place?'" he demanded.

"Oh, I did that," Robards said, matter-of-factly. "That was my big test, my _pièce de résistance_. I wanted to see if you could handle something big like a time alteration paradox. And you did!" the faux Head beamed at Harry.

Harry looked away, trying to control his anger. He needed answers to what had been happening to him over the past several days. He turned back to the fake Head Auror. "Are you _finally_ going to tell me what this was all about?" Harry snapped. "Seeing as I've passed all your damned tests?"

Robards leaned forward, smiling. "Yes, Harry, you've done very well indeed with my tests, much better than the other Harry Potters I've tested have done. I'm ready to make you my offer."

"_Other_ Harry Potters?" Harry didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean? What other Harry Potters are there?"

"Oh, quite a few," the ersatz Robards told him, candidly. "I've been interviewing for quite some time now, and you're the first one who's made it past all six of my tests. Now that may have just been luck on your part, but I like to think you've got much of the same 'Harry Potterness' I see in myself."

"And who are you supposed to be?" Harry demanded.

"Me?" Robards leaned back, produced a wand and tapped himself on the head with it. His features shimmered and dissolved, solidifying in a few moments into — Harry Potter, although one who looked several years older than Harry himself did. Taller, heavier, with no glasses but with the same unruly black hair that Harry had always had, his lightning scar was barely visible beneath his forelocks.

"I'm Harry Potter, too," the man behind the desk said. "But you can call me A.K."

**A/N: Next, with our mystery man finally revealed, the final chapter is coming up. Reviews of this chapter and the story itself will be appreciated! **


	7. AK

Harry Potter Versus

**Chapter Seven  
****A.K.**

_Updated July 21, 2012_

=ooo=

"A.K.," Harry repeated, beginning to get really angry now. "That doesn't tell me _anything_. How can you be me? What did you mean when you said you've been interviewing _other_ Harry Potters? How can there be more than one of me?"

"Settle down, willya?" the other Harry — or A.K., it might be less confusing to think of him that way — suggested. "Don't worry, I'm going to lay it all out for you." A.K. was now wearing army fatigues, which had transformed from the robes he'd been wearing as Robards. He fished a pack of cigarettes out of a shirt pocket, pulled one out of the pack with his mouth, and lit it with the tip of his wand. He took a deep drag and settled back, giving Harry a bemused look.

Harry, however, was in no mood for bemused looks. "Well?" he demanded. "What's your explanation for all the bullshit you put me through?"

"That's something I like about you, Harry," A.K. said. "You pretty much cut through the bullshit to the heart of the matter. And I did throw a lot of shit at you. It was the only way I could tell whether you were worthy of joining me."

"_Joining_ you?" Harry stared at his older doppelganger in disbelief. "I don't even know who the bloody hell you _are_, man! What reason do I have to join whoever-the-hell-you-are in the first place?"

"To go on killing Voldemorts," A.K. said, brightly.

"Voldemorts?" Harry frowned. "You mean, other Dark Lords?"

"No, I mean other _Voldemorts_. Tom Marvolo Riddle. Or sometimes it's David More Mollort, or Tom David Mellroor, or whatever, but he's always Lord Voldemort," A.K. shrugged.

Harry blanched. Had they somehow missed — "Do you mean we didn't find all of his, er —"

"Horcruxes?" A.K. finished, grinning. "Yes, I know about Horcruxes, Harry. In fact, I know a _lot_ more about Horcruxes than you might think. _You_ know about them, after all, and I am you."

"I'm still waiting to hear what _that's_ all about," Harry snarled, still angry. "How can you be me? I don't know of any kind of magic that could make a duplicate of me, or of anyone for that matter."

"Well, it's not magic, per se," A.K. explained. "I guess I should stop screwing around and say it straight out — I'm from a different dimension."

The Head's office went dead silent. Harry tried parsing that last statement several ways, but finally — "I have no idea what the eff you're talking about."

A.K. chuckled. "Still a Boy Scout, I see." He stubbed out the butt of his cigarette on the edge of the desk, irritating Harry even more, and lit up another one. "Let me give you the 4-1-1 on who I am and what I'm doing here. Which is what you want, I think."

"Definitely," Harry agreed, though his anger at the lunacy of this situation was still making him impatient. "So — out with it."

"Impatient little bastard, aren't you?" A.K. sneered, and Harry bridled. "Okay, never mind, here's the deal. There are an infinite number of alternate dimensions —"

"Which are _what_, exactly?" Harry interrupted.

"Alternate universes, different realities," A.K. amplified. "There's a Muggle theory that might explain some of it, the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, a.k.a. the relative state formulation, or the many-universes interpretation. Supposedly, at any point when there are two or more possible outcomes to an event, they all happen, each in their world."

There was nothing Harry could really say to that, so he didn't. Instead, he asked, "So how did you come to be in _this_ world?"

"I'm glad you asked that," A.K. grinned. "Magic."

Harry sighed.

"I know," A.K. admitted. "It always seems trite when some wizard says that, doesn't it? But that's the fact, Jack. I suppose I should explain _why_ I'm here and why I put you through all of those tests."

"Yeah, I'd really like that," Harry said, with heavy irony.

A.K. ignored his tone. "Well, in my world I had just killed Voldemort by biting off his head —"

"_What_?" Harry blurted.

"I was Animorphed as a nundu," A.K. explained. "I did the ritual that let me become an Amimorphmagus — it's handier than just being an Animagus, because with that you can only turn into one kind of animal, while an Animorphmagus can become any animal he's come in contact with — and let me tell you, it's an interesting experience getting close enough to touch a nundu!

"Anyway, I'd just killed Voldemort when this other Harry Potter showed up, calling himself A.K. —"

"But I thought _you_ were A.K. —"

"Harry, just lemme tell the goddam story, okay? Anyway, I'd made this vow to defeat Death Eaters and evil wherever I found it, and I was ready to go on the hunt again, when this other A.K. showed and wanted a parley with me. I was still just a Harry Potter at the time. It seems he'd made the same sort of vow, to kill Voldemort no matter where he was, and the fact that he'd learned how to move from one dimension to another meant he had to go on killing Voldemorts forever. He thought I might have the same kind of problem, especially if I learned how to dimension-hop like he had, so he offered to make me his apprentice."

Harry cocked his head at this. "Is that what you're offering me? Because if you are, I have to tell you, I'm not interested."

A.K. looked surprised. "Really? Not interested in seeing all the different Harry Potters spread out across the multiverse and helping them with their own Voldemort problem?"

"Not at all," Harry said firmly. "I'm doing what I want to do now and in a few years, when she's done playing Quidditch, I hope to marry —"

"Oh, Satan's salty sack," A.K. moaned. "Don't tell me, let me guess. Ginny Weasley."

"Of _course_ Ginny Weasley!" Harry looked indignant at his counterpart's apathy toward the woman he loved. "Don't tell me you weren't in love with her, too!"

"Of course I was," A.K. said, and for the first time since they'd begun talking he looked away from Harry. "But that was before I found out what a scheming, conniving little bitch she was."

"What the hell?" Harry bolted up out of his chair. "You take that back —!" A.K. flicked a hand at Harry and a sudden magical push shoved him back in his chair.

"Grow up, wouldja?" A.K. snapped at him, "There's a lot more to her than you know, and in most of the worlds I've been in she's either being manipulated by her mother, or by Dumbledore, or both, or she's got her own agenda for marrying the Boy-Who-Lived. Before I met A.K. I worshipped the ground my Ginny walked on. But now?" A.K. shook his head. "I wouldn't cross the street to piss on her grave. Maybe your Ginny's different, I dunno. But my experience says she's got her own reasons for marrying you, and they don't have much to do with her being in love with you since she was ten years old."

"Right, whatever," Harry said, dismissing the conversation. "None of that matters because however many Ginnys there are, the one that's _here_ does love me, and besides that I have no interest in fighting Voldemorts or whatever it is you're doing. I fought Voldemort for seven bloody years — that ought to be enough for anyone!"

"Hmm, no," A.K. disagreed. "You got off pretty light, kid, as Second Wars against Voldemort go."

"That's barmy!" Harry snapped, fired up once again. "Do you realize how many people _died_ in those final battles?"

"Pffft," A.K. snickered. "I've seen worlds where _everybody_ dies, that's how bad the war with Voldemort can get — he gets all pissy because his Horcruxes have been destroyed and decides to take London, or Britain, or the whole goddam world down with him."

"The…whole…_world_?" Harry was having difficulty wrapping his mind around that. "That sounds completely…mad."

"Well, we are talking about Voldemort, kiddo," A.K. pointed out, exhaling the last of his second butt. "He's mad as a hatter on the best of worlds, unless you find one them where he only divided his soul two ways, or three."

"I thought he wanted to rule the world, not destroy it," Harry whispered, aghast at the thought that a man, even one like Voldemort, could be that insane.

"Sour grapes," A.K. muttered, with a shrug. "Hell, even the Muggles are nearly as mad as Voldemort — d'you know they've got something called a 'Doomsday Clock,' that's supposed to show how close the world is to a global nuclear conflict. It's set at 9 minutes to midnight right now." He stubbed out his second butt on the desk.

"By the way," Harry asked, watching as A.K. burned another hole in the Head's desk. "What did you do with Robards?"

"Oh, don't worry," A.K. patted the top of the desk. "He's safe. He's having a kip in a trunk I put in the lower left drawer."

"You might as well wake him up, then, and be on your way," Harry suggested, coldly. "You and I are done talking. Too bad things didn't work out."

But A.K. made no move to leave. "I haven't even told you about the perks of being my apprentice."

"I don't care about the perks," Harry said flatly. "I'm not doing it."

"You get your own Horcrux dimension," A.K. offered.

Whatever that was, Harry decided, it couldn't be good. "I'm not going to _kill_ someone just to unnaturally extend my life!" he rasped. "That negates everything I believe in!"

"Oh Christ," A.K. sighed. "You killed Voldemort, didn't you? And that means your soul's already ripped, since I assume you don't regret doing it."

"I _didn't_ kill Voldemort," Harry objected. "His own Killing Curse rebounded on him when it hit my Disarming Charm, because he was using the Elder Wand, which I was the true master of. So I never murdered anyone."

"Holy shit," A.K. muttered. "You really _are_ a Boy Scout, aincha?"

"More than you are, obviously," Harry sneered. "How many people have _you_ killed?"

"Oh, I've lost count," A.K. waved a hand airily. "Besides, that doesn't really matter. I can set up your Horcrux dimension so that your own death will trigger it the first time. You never have to kill anyone to get your own Horcrux dimension. The only drawback is that you'll come back the way you are when you first die, so if you're an old man you'll keep coming back that way. I mean, it's immortality, but I'd rather not be an old fart, like Dumbledore was when you knew him, for the rest of eternity. By then, he was a bit —" A.K. tapped his temple significantly.

Harry grimaced. "Look," he said, slowly and carefully so this maniac would understand. "Get it through your head — I'm not interested in buying what you're selling. I don't want to live forever. I want to have a happy, rewarding life free from killing Voldemorts or what-have-you. I want to be an Auror and find dark wizards and keep them from turning into Dark Lords. I want to get married to Ginny and have kids and send them to Hogwarts and have them grow up in a world free of Dark Lords and Death Eaters. That means I'm staying right here, where I belong. Do you get that?"

A.K.'s face had turned stony while Harry was talking. "Yeah, I get it," he said after Harry finished speaking. "It looks like I misjudged you, Harry, and for that I am really sorry. And I'm really sorry for what has to happen next."

"What do you —"

"_Avada Kedavra_!"

Harry Potter fell over, dead.

A.K. stared somberly at the body. "Such a senseless waste of human life," he sighed, quoting Monty Python. "Sorry, kid, but when you run with the big dogs you gotta expect to get bitten." A.K. stared at Harry's body for a few moments, then bent down and opened his eyelids, staring at his brilliant green eyes. "Hm, that's strange..."

He stood again, considering what to do next, then began the complicated spell that would take him to another dimension. If what he suspected was true, this would be a rather unusual dimensional shift. Moments later, the spell completed, A.K. disappeared from this reality.

=ooo=

He felt a cool smoothness against his cheek and chest as he lay silently, unmoving, where he seemed to have fallen. It was strange, he realized at some point, because there should be the feel of carpet against his cheek, unless he'd been moved. Harry opened his eyes.

He was surrounded by a white, oddly familiar mist, the only thing in his field of vision. He slowly rolled over onto his back, realizing as he did that he was naked. This, too, was oddly familiar, and Harry was beginning to experience a sense of déjà vu — this had happened to him before.

He sat up and looked around. Above him was a great domed glass roof, glittering in sunlight as he'd remembered it. The hall upon which the domed roof sat was all around him as well. He glanced to his side, and almost before he thought of it a white robe was lying next to him.

Why would he be _here_ again? And what of that — other, the thing that had been here before? Hesitant for the first time since awakening, Harry listened for the sounds of its movements. But he was quite alone this time.

Harry shrugged into the robe and stood, looking around. He had been here before, two years ago, when he'd faced Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, faced him knowing that soon he would be dead and the last bit of Tom Riddle's soul would be gone, leaving only one Horcrux between Voldemort and his mortality. But things did not go as either he or Voldemort expected. He woke up here, along with a small, flayed, struggling remnant of Riddle's soul, a soul so ripped and damaged that it could not move beyond where they were. Harry wondered where that remnant was now.

But Harry faced a bigger question — why was he here, _now_? The last thing he remembered before waking up here was A.K. shouting "_Avada Kedavra_!" at him. He should be dead. What did it mean that he found himself _here_, in what he'd called "Kings Cross" before?

If he wasn't dead, could he go back? Could he just make the decision to do that, as he had before, and wake up in his body once again? But if he was dead, and tried to go back, would he find he was now a ghost? Harry didn't think he was afraid of dying — he'd been ready to die at Voldemort's hands — but there might be other reasons one became a ghost. Harry didn't relish the idea of haunting the Head's office forever.

"Harry!" a voice Harry remembered well suddenly spoke from nearby, and Harry turned to see Albus Dumbledore walking toward him across the cool white floor, dressed in his robe of midnight blue, just as he'd been during their last meeting. The wizard now looked younger than the last time Harry had seen him; his hair was auburn and his beard, instead of reaching to his waist, barely covered his chest. Dumbledore drew near and placed a fatherly hand on Harry's shoulder. "An unexpected surprise! How are you, dear boy?"

"Confused," Harry said, truthfully. It was good to see Dumbledore again — the _real_ Dumbledore, the one he remembered growing up with — not that one from the altered reality he had just visited. "I don't know what I'm doing here, honestly."

Dumbledore nodded seriously. "I would not have expected to see you again for many years. Perhaps you should tell me the circumstances that brought you here, and we will try and work out an explanation."

Harry described the series of missions he'd been sent on by the person who called himself A.K., who said he was originally a Harry Potter from another dimension. After the last mission A.K. revealed himself and told Harry he wanted him to become his apprentice and travel to other dimensions to fight other Voldemorts. When Harry refused, A.K. killed him, and he woke up here. Dumbledore did not react with surprise to anything Harry told him, but merely nodded gravely as each facet of the tale unfurled.

"Quite intriguing," the wizard murmured when Harry finished his tale. "The enchantment that kept you from dying when Voldemort cursed you should have broken when he died."

Harry nodded, but a question occurred to him. "Where is that bit of Voldemort's soul now? Is it still here?"

"It may be." Dumbledore pondered a moment. "We both saw it, the last time you were here. It was unable to move on beyond this place by its own power, and after his final death the mangled remnant of Tom Riddle's soul would have come here. It is possible, I suppose, that he is anchoring you here, in this place between life and death. Also, as torn and shredded as his soul is, it will nevertheless remain here forever."

Harry was still confused. "Does that mean you think I'm unable to _die_?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "I think that, as before, Harry, you have a choice. If you decide to, you can move on from here, or go back. Voldemort's soul may have stopped you here, but it cannot prevent you from leaving, whatever you decide to do."

Harry shook his head wryly. "I wonder if this is what a Horcrux dimension is like?"

Dumbledore blinked. "I'm sorry, Harry," he said, with a look of concern coming over his normally placid features. "What do you mean by a 'Horcrux dimension?'"

"I'm not sure I understand it myself," Harry admitted. "A.K., the other Harry Potter, told me he would give me my own Horcrux dimension if I joined him. The way he explained it, a Horcrux dimension would keep me alive forever, bringing me back to life when I died."

"You didn't accept this offer, I presume?" Dumbledore asked, apprehension in his voice.

"Of course not!" Harry declared. "I don't have any intention of living forever. At least not in this world."

Dumbledore looked relieved. "What are you plans now?"

"Go back, if I can," Harry answered.

"That may not be as easy as you think," a new voice suddenly interjected.

Harry and Dumbledore both turned toward the sound of the voice, to see A.K. striding toward them.

"How — how can you be _here_?" Harry asked, astonished.

"This place is just another dimension," A.K. shrugged, stopping a few feet from them. "I just aimed my spell to take me wherever you were."

"But Harry was dead as far as you were concerned," Dumbledore pointed out to the newcomer. "I find it difficult to believe you expected to transport yourself beyond life itself to follow him."

"Well, I wasn't exactly sure he was _dead_, per se," A.K. replied. "I checked his eyes afterwards, and they were not showing the telltale signs of being dead. He was only mostly dead, like that Wesley character in the _Princess Bride_ movie."

"And so you followed me, finish the job?" Harry asked, grimly.

"Well, I was curious, honestly," A.K. said, avoiding a direct answer to the question. "Normally, when I curse someone, even another Harry Potter, that's all she wrote." He reached into a pocket of his fatigues and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and as Harry and Dumbledore watched with revulsion, fished out a cigarette and lit up. "Ahh," he sighed, beginning to look relaxed. "But this time something didn't seem right, and when I checked Harry's eyes I could see a bit of him still in there. So I decided to find out what's going on."

"It seems very unlikely you could have reached this place through some type of dimension-spanning magic," Dumbledore pointed out. "This place is merely a manifestation of Harry and Voldemort's connection to each other — it is not really another dimension at all."

A.K. smirked. "I think you're a little outside your field, Professor. I've learned quite a bit about alternate dimensions and realities since I started doing this on my own. The A.K. that taught me knew quite a bit about dimension hopping — he'd studied the Veil in the Department of Mysteries and did a lot of research into the magic of moving across dimensions. This place is as much a dimension as Harry can make it — his mind and his magic created it. And _you're_ here, aren't you, even though you're supposed to be dead."

"Wait a minute," Harry interrupted. "Are you saying Professor Dumbledore is just a part of my mind?"

"No, he's probably the real Dumbledore," A.K. replied. "The dead can sometimes affect the minds of the living — in dreams, for example. And in this case, Harry, your soul is almost ready to leave your body. It just happened that something's holding it back. And I suppose I can guess what that something is."

Neither Harry nor Dumbledore said anything.

A.K. chuckled and took another drag of his cigarette. "Gonna make me say it, aren't you? It's Voldemort, of course. He's somewhere around here, isn't he?" He took out his wand and let it sit on his open palm. "Point me Voldemort!" he said, and the wand swung around to a new orientation. A.K. pointed his wand in that direction and shouted, "_Accio Voldemort_!"

Nothing happened for several seconds. Harry and Dumbledore glanced at each other, wondering if _Accio_ even worked on a soul. But suddenly an object passed through the wall of the great hall they were in, flying toward them until it dropped at A.K.'s feet with a wet _plop_.

It was just as Harry remembered it: a small, naked child, its skin rough and flayed, gasping as if every breath was its last. As helpless as it looked, he could not help taking a step back, to distance himself from it.

A.K. noticed. "Gives you the creeps, huh?" he smirked. "That's kind of pathetic given you were able to handle all those other situations I threw at you. That makes me glad I showed up here to finish what I started."

"So you do intend to kill me," Harry stated. Dumbledore's expression grew flinty, and he shifted to a more aggressive stance.

"Yes," A.K. nodded. "And don't get any ideas, old man," he said to Dumbledore, noticing his change in demeanor. "You don't have any say in this."

"I believe I do," Dumbledore disagreed. He waved his hand and a Stunning spell shot towards A.K., who casually deflected it and riposted with a Blasting Curse. Dumbledore exploded into white mist but immediately reformed, unharmed.

"Well, that's annoying," A.K. said, not firing another curse because Harry had put up a Shield Charm between them. "I don't suppose Avada Kedavra will work here, either."

"It is unlikely," Dumbledore said, coldly. "Souls can only affect themselves, such as when a wizard does murder to create a Horcrux. This may be something you are unable to appreciate."

"No, I appreciate it," A.K. muttered, dropping the butt he'd been smoking onto the white floor and stubbing it out. "But one of my best tricks is the Egyptian Soul Trap, which severs all connections to a soul and traps it in its current container and prevents any further splitting."

Harry, who had just dropped the shield as it seemed A.K. couldn't actually harm him or Dumbledore, actually nodded appreciatively. "That's something we could have used back in the day," he muttered wistfully.

"Too right, kid," A.K. agreed. "All of Voldie's extant Horcruxes go inert and become isolated from each other. The only downside is that someone has to die to kill a person who's been Soul-Trapped, but that's not a problem for me. That Horcrux dimension I mentioned, remember?"

"I would have done it even without a Horcrux dimension," Harry said, fiercely. "I was ready to let him kill me — it would be worth it knowing it would finish him as well."

"Good for you," A.K. said, sarcastically. "Too bad I didn't show up before you took him out — it would have solved both our problems."

Harry stiffened. "So you're still going to try to kill me, even now?"

"Nah," A.K. said, "It looks like you're safe." He glanced at Dumbledore. "You too, old man. I'm not going to attack either of you." He glanced at the curled, whimpering child-thing at his feet. "_You_, on the other hand —"

A.K. suddenly crouched, grasping the thing by its chest. He yelled words in a language neither Harry nor Dumbledore understood, and the child-thing spasmed violently in his grasp. Harry swayed uncertainly, feeling disoriented, as A.K. picked up Voldemort's flayed body and hugged it. A moment later both of them exploded into gobbets of blood, flesh, bone, and sparkly powder. Both Harry and Dumbledore instinctively raised hands to protect themselves; the gore vanished before it reached them. The white mist immediately coalesced back into the child-thing.

"What did he do?" Harry asked, of no one in particular, even as he slumped onto one knee, suddenly exhausted.

"Are you alright, my dear boy?" Dumbledore hurried to his side. "How do you feel?"

"I don't know," Harry said, after a moment. "I felt a tingling sensation run straight through me, and now all my energy seems to be gone. What was that spell he cast?"

"I did not recognize it," Dumbledore answered. "But it seems as though A.K. cast his Soul-Trapping spell on the remnant of Voldemort's soul, so that he could destroy it."

Harry pointed weakly to the child-thing. "It looks like he failed, then. It's still here."

"Yes, I see…" Dumbledore seemed to think intently for several moments. "Perhaps his intention, then, was to sever the connections between Voldemort's soul and yours, the connection that holds you to this place until you choose which way you will go."

"Well, in that case…" Harry fell over onto his side. "He may…have…succeeded." Dumbledore knelt by his side, cradling Harry's head. "I think I may be leaving with you, sir, to wherever it is you came from."

"That's the plan, Stan," A.K. interjected, from behind Dumbledore. He walked up to stand next to the fallen Harry and his former headmaster.

"Your connection to this place, and to Voldie's soul, is now gone," he stated, watching disinterestedly as Harry began shuddering just as Voldemort was, nearby. "You don't have a choice anymore."

"Why would you do this?" Dumbledore asked, anger now evident in his voice.

A.K. shrugged. "Well, I'd tell you it's nothing personal, Albie, but in this case it is. I worked pretty hard to test Harry and make sure he was a worthy apprentice for me, and he threw it back in my face.

"But that's not to say he'd always feel that way, and it's possible (though pretty unlikely) that another A.K. would show up and offer him the same deal I had, and that he'd take it. Well, that shit won't stand. If one of us happens to get scragged by a Voldemort (also pretty unlikely, but it's happened) the remaining A.K. nominate our apprentices for the opening and vote to bring one on board as the newest A.K., since there always has to be 42 of us. If this Harry isn't going to be my apprentice then nobody else gets him, either."

"That is…abominable," Dumbledore whispered, as Harry began to shiver. "You are no different than Voldemort."

"Look who's talking," A.K. snorted. "In how many universes have you left Harry an emotionally abandoned, physically abused wreck at the hands of the Dursleys by the time he's arrived at Hogwarts? How many times have you manipulated the Wizengamot so that Sirius would end up in Azkaban so he wouldn't get custody of Harry? How many times have you made Molly Weasley feel as though she is Harry's second mother? I could go on and on," he added, dismissively.

"I have done none of those things," Dumbledore answered, quietly. "Harry needed to live with his aunt; in her household he was within the power of his mother's protection spell, which I extended to Petunia through her blood relation with Lily. I did not realize that Sirius had Peter Pettigrew become the Potters' Secret-Keeper. I did ask for a formal trial for Sirius, but a vote of the Wizengamot overruled that. Molly Weasley has always been a caring and compassionate woman; it was her own feelings that made her so devoted to Harry, not anything I instilled in her.

"Another Boy Scout," A.K. muttered, staring closely at Harry. "You about ready to let go, sport?" he asked him. "I got things to do and other Voldemorts to kill."

"Don't let me keep you from your next party," Harry gasped weakly. Dumbledore's eyes widened, and he leaned over Harry, whispering in his ear.

"What now?" A.K. asked, bored.

Harry took a deep breath. "The Professor just reminded me of something," he said, his voice suddenly becoming stronger. "This is _my_ party." He got to his feet as A.K. watched in surprise. "Voldemort's and my soul may not be connected any more, but I'm still in charge here." He faced A.K. directly. "And that means you're leaving and not coming back."

A.K. laughed. "And how d'you think you're gonna manage _that_, kid?"

"Like this." Harry reached out and grabbed A.K.'s chest, then shouted the words he'd heard A.K. use earlier on Voldemort. A.K., unprepared for this assault, screamed as the Soul Cage closed around his own soul. Harry then grabbed the larger A.K. in a bear hug and cast the most powerful Blasting Curse he could directly between them. Both men exploded — Harry into white powder and A.K. into bloody gore once again. The white powder immediately reformed into Harry, who turned to Dumbledore with an expression of grim satisfaction. Dumbledore's mouth was open in frank astonishment.

"You — killed him?" Dumbledore finally asked, honestly questioning what Harry had done.

Harry shook his head. "I don't think he _can_ die," he said. "His Horcrux dimension is supposed to prevent that. But if I did what I hope, I exiled him from my world — he'll never be able to enter it again, so he'll never be able to bother me or anyone else there."

"That is very sophisticated magic for someone so young, my boy," Dumbledore observed.

"Probably," Harry agreed. "But I just thought of an Anti-Apparition Jinx and shifted the intent from Apparition to dimensional travel. Since this is 'my party,' as you pointed out, I hope that the effects extend to from here to where my body is."

"I see," Dumbledore nodded, smiling once again. "Well done, Harry. I hope this means you plan to return to your world and resume your life."

"Yes," Harry said. He stepped forward and embraced Dumbledore. "Thank you, Albus, for reminding me that this place exists because of me. That made all the difference."

Dumbledore's eyes were bright as he stepped back from Harry's embrace. "Thank _you_, my boy, for giving me this opportunity to see you once again. And to be of some small assistance in your struggle with — well, you."

"_Not_ me," Harry argued. "A.K. was more like an anti-Harry than anything. Well, I'll see you again, someday, Albus."

"Undoubtedly," Dumbledore agreed, then gave Harry a slight bow, turned and walked away. Within a few steps he had disappeared entirely.

The entire hall Harry was in began to darken and dissolve back into mist, and within moments everything had gone black —

=ooo=

"Look, I think he's coming round, Ron!"

"Yeah, he is! Harry, Harry, can you hear us?"

Harry felt carpet beneath his back, and a throbbing pain in his chest where the Killing Curse had hit him. The pain was rapidly receding, however; it felt as if someone had Rennervated him. His eyes flickered open.

"Thank Merlin!" Ron was hovering over him, and behind him Harry could just make out Hermione, the look of anxiety on her face turning to relief. "Harry, are you okay?" Ron asked.

"I think so," Harry managed to nod. "What happened?"

"We were going to ask _you_ that!" Hermione said. "You left us to go see Robards a few minutes ago, but one of the Aurors came and got us a minute ago, saying he'd found you lying on the floor of the office!"

"Where's Robards?" Ron asked.

"Uh —" Harry thought for a second. "Lower left drawer of his desk, in a trunk. Asleep."

Ron and Hermione both looked confused. "Why would you put him _there_?"

"I didn't —" Harry didn't feel like explaining this now. "It's a long story." He tried to get up, but neither his arms nor his legs wanted to cooperate.

"You're going to St. Mungo's," Hermione stated. It was an order, not a suggestion. "You're going to need some rest."

"I'm not in much of a position to argue," Harry agreed, smiling.

"Too right," Ron agreed. He stood and cast a Levitation Charm on Harry, floating him upwards a few feet. "Do you want to go order us a Portkey to St. Mungo's?" he asked Hermione.

"I'll do better than that," she answered, taking a paperweight off the Head's desk and tapping it with her wand, saying "_Portus_," as she did so. It glowed blue for a moment and she handed it to Ron. "It'll activate in ten seconds," she said quickly. "I'll be right behind you after I finish filling out the paperwork."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Bollocks to that," he said, taking her hand and pulling it onto Harry's chest with his own. Before she could react the Portkey activated and the three best friends disappeared in a whirlwind of color and sound.

It was several minutes before there was another sound in the room. "Say, where the hell am I?" asked a very tiny voice, from within the lower left drawer of the desk.

=ooo=

When A.K. reappeared, shaken and surprised at what had just happened, he found himself in the interdimensional locker room used by him and the other A.K.s. Muttering under his breath, he quickly cast the dimension-hopping spell that would take him back to Harry's dimension.

But the spell failed. Cursing, A.K. tried again. But the way was blocked. Could that Harry Potter have figured out a way to block his return? It seemed so — A.K. could think of a way or two to do that, but he wouldn't have thought that a Harry Potter unschooled in dimension-hopping magic could dope out something like that.

Well, no matter — he might be denied access to that dimension from now own, but there were an infinity of others he still had access to. A.K. began the spell once again, this time aiming for a world where Harry Potter might be a bit more amenable to Voldemort killing. He vanished, leaving the locker room empty once again.

**THE END**

**Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this final chapter. Whether you did or didn't, leave a review and tell me what you thought of it, please. I thought A.K. was an interesting antagonist to put Harry up against, though it was a bit hard to imagine how Harry would best him. Obviously, a Harry Potter was going to win, but it wasn't obvious which one it would be.**


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